Focus Sequel to PhaHks
by G.E Waldo
Summary: Mulder continues to recover from his ordeal during his abduction and find new life again.
1. Chapter 1

TITLE: "FOCUS" (Sequel to "PhaHks")- Part I/4.

AUTHOR: GeeLady (GenieVB)

RATING: NC-17. MT/ScSkR/MScR/MOR/MAJOR ANGST!, language,

violence, sexually explicit scenes, Slash-violent rape, adult situations.

SPOILERS: "PhaHks" by GeeLady (GenieVB). Various X-Files

episodes.

As a friend commented: "So, basically, it's

about a hurtin' Muld'?"

Yep.

DISCLAIMER: The X-Files series, movie, characters,

and related props: ugly pajamas, anal probes and

rusty urinals are all the property of Chris Carter, Ten

Thirteen Productions and the Fox Network. I don't want

any credit, fame or fortune from X-Files, I only want

to write about your show and characters to entertain

myself and others.

This story is fictitious. If there appear to be people

or places (names of supporting characters & hospitals for

example) bearing any resemblance to actual institutions

or persons, it is by COINCIDENCE ONLY. All names of places

and secondary characters I made up! Therefore no insult is

intended toward the Physicians, Hospitals or Institutions

of America.

BTW: I am not a doctor in any way, shape or form. I've only

read a few books and journals in that field so if, in the

story, the therapist's methods seem a tad unusual, it is MY

lack of knowledge, and not the practices of psychology, that

is to blame.

Although I think this story stands on its own, I do

suggest you first read "PhaHks" even if you don't like

Star Trek, it may help you catch the small stuff in

FOCUS.

FOCUS. Part I

("To adjust the focus of the eye...",

"The point or space towards which light rays

converge or from which they emanate.",

LATIN: "hearth, fireplace. Home.")

Somehow, she steered him toward her building,

and inside to her apartment. Then, once her door was closed

and the lock flipped, right into the bathroom.

Scully was afraid that if she allowed him to sit down

anywhere on the way, Mulder would go to sleep and never wake

up.

Scully had seen her partner in many conditions of illness

or anguish.

Never like this.

After finding him at the bus station, dressed in old,

ill-fitting clothes - clothes that must have fit him at

one time but now hung off his thin frame as if they'd been

sown for a healthier man - his eyes were now dead of

emotion and a phrase had started repeating in her mind:

- Broken to death, broken to death -

Scully ran the bathwater while her silent guest sat slumped

over on the toilet seat. He was trying to untie his running

shoes and being unable to, his fingers fumbling and dropping

the laces.

"Here." She finished for him and pulled the sneakers off. His

feet were bare.

Speaking very gently, "Stand up, Mulder. Let's get

these clothes off."

"I can do it, Scully." His voice was small.

"Mulder, you can't hardly stand on your own. Just let me

help you, okay?"

He nodded. No more arguments came after that.

Scully stripped his shirt off while he leaned against the

sink to keep balance. She had to bite her lip and hold onto

a gasp when she saw his chest, decorated with scars. One

or two were old, ones she was intimately familiar with.

But the others,..especially the long, horrible one on his

abdomen...

Stubbornly blinking back tears, Scully helped Mulder remove

his jeans. No underwear either.

She skipped speculation on how down and out he must have been

to not manage underwear. But maybe he'd been given none. Maybe

his captors had dropped him off in a ditch, naked and bleeding.

Maybe the fuckers had laughed as they drove away, leaving him

to die.

Perhaps this ensemble was all he'd been able to come up with just

so he could be allowed aboard a public vehicle in order to make his

way to her.

One tear rolled and she bent over to test the water's temperature,

wiping it angrily away at the same time. Mulder was upset enough,

in the numbed center of him, that she felt he didn't need to see her

lose it too.

Adding a dab of bath gel to the water, Scully swished it around.

But Mulder had sat back down, hunched over - embarrassed - she

realized, about his nakedness. He still felt some things.

"Come on." She tried to find a middle ground in her tone and

manner - clinical but not cold, familiar but not intimate - to ease

his shame at having to be helped to undress and now bathed as if

he were a baby or a cripple.

But he was crippled, in a terrible way. A new chant invaded

her thoughts:

Dying on the inside. Dying, dying...

Scully helped him balance as he stepped one foot at a time, into

the apartment-typical shallow tub.

The first thing she did was get a pitcher and wet his hair down.

A small dime of shampoo, then lathering - she felt bumps on his

skull. Old injuries or new? She then repeated the shampoo.

Rinsing took only a moment. Not bothering with conditioner, she

started to wash his back with a soapy sponge, it slid over white

skin and washboard ribs. Leaner than she had ever seen him, it was

an unhealthy, neglected thinness.

Then she did his chest, soaped his underarms, both legs, and

finally his feet.

She didn't fail to notice that he kept his knees bent through-

out it all, leaning toward her and at the same time against

the side of the tub. He was hunkered over as if protecting himself

against her and her too much touch. His eyes were focused else

where, somewhere very far away, she thought, as he blinked every

minute or so, even that motion sluggish. Maybe it was a lack of

things seen.

Maybe he was watching nothing, behind his eyes or in front.

However, though still and mute, he was allowing her to wash him,

putting himself into her hands with an almost child-like relief.

He trusted her, she thought. /- That I won't hurt him, that much

at least./

But it was clear he was not liking the physical contact and that

made her uncomfortable also.

And a little sad.

Just a short two hours ago, they had been sharing warm hearts,

hands and words in a public place. Desperate kisses and clutching

had been exchanged. Smiles, tears, promises...

Two souls reunited after eight years. Mulder gone - kidnaped -

with no word, no reason ever discovered and no offering of hope.

Those moments of togetherness in the crowded Greyhound Terminal

had waned the closer she drove the Explorer to her home.

Now it was almost gone, it seemed. Now he appeared ashamed and

cowed at her and everything that was happening. She'd walked him

through the journey from the Station to her small corner of life

and he had appeared at first mistrustful and, soon after, simply

oblivious to all of it.

Mulder was far, far worse off than she had originally thought.

He was way down deep inside himself somewhere. Maybe even deeper

than where he'd been kept physically. In some filthy prison.

Locked away in a windowless basement. Held against his will in a

cold hole that offered neither light, warmth or hope. Eight years

in some second hell where the concept of heaven was never debated.

She'd spent those eight years in her own kind of hell. The hell

of keeping hope in something hopeless.

"Hungry?" She asked, mostly to fill up the silence that hung

painfully in the steamy bathroom. He shook his head.

Scully handed him the soap and the sponge. "Are you okay? Can

you do the rest on your own?"

He accepted them, nodding, obviously glad she wasn't going to

attempt cleaning his privates herself.

Scully closed the vinyl curtain (large yellow canaries perched

on green branches) halfway, and the bathroom door almost all the

way, giving him the privacy he needed.

Running a kettle under the tap in the kitchen, she busied

herself in making tea.

Teabags, sugar, readied the cream and the spoons and the cups.

Took a tray down from the cupboard and wiped off the dust. How

long since she'd had any company?

Mundane, time-killing, infuriating things that meant nothing

except to fill in a gap of time while she listened for him to

finish up yet not knowing what to expect when he did and not

really wanting to face whatever it would be.

The kettle sang.

Scully heard a choking noise coming from the bathroom and

almost went back. It would have done him no good. If he wanted to

sob then she would let him. If he decided to give up the fight

right there in her bathtub and quietly slip away, she had no

right to force him not to.

But she prayed to god he wouldn't. Her own sanity, she felt,

was on the line as well. Certainly her heart was feeling pinched.

Scully forced herself to Stand Still And Prepare Tea to serve

up to a very sick man whom she hadn't seen in eight years while

he sobbed his heart out in her bathroom.

She cried silently herself, wanting to have the tears over with

by the time his tanks were empty and she'd have to find some way

of looking at him, helping him. She needed to be strong so he

wouldn't have to be.

A bath and tea.

/Some prescription! Good start, Scully. "Cookie, Mulder?" "One

lump or two?"/

What does one say to the freshly scrubbed mentally shattered?

/Doctor Scully, clearly, you've been working on corpses too

long/.

Scully listened to his snorts and gasps as his heart spilled

over into the dirty water. Nothing she could do was going to cure

this size of wound.

Finally the sobs subsided but only after she'd consumed three

cups of tea alone at her kitchen table. She hadn't entered the

bathroom again the whole time. Even when she'd heard his crying

transform to choking coughs and moaning sobs.

For nearly one hour, he'd cried.

The kind of sobbing that most people did maybe once or twice in

a lifetime. The kind that tore you in half and left you sick and

feeling like crumpled paper.

She had cried like that once. After her daughter died. After

Emily - her arterial system growing grotesquely malformed and

polluting her body and brain by the unidentified toxins carried

within - stopped breathing and turned cold.

Scully herself had cried those horrible kind of tears.

When the bathroom had been silent for several minutes, Scully

returned to find him slumped against the side of the tub where

she'd left him. He was asleep and he was goose fleshed, the water

barely warm.

Rousing him, she helped him out, wrapped a towel around his waist,

tucking it in place, and towel-dried him down with another before

leading him to her guest bedroom.

"Feel better?" She asked as he slipped in and she arranged the

covers around him. His eyes were red-veined and puffy. "Headache."

He spoke just above a whisper. Didn't look at her.

She nodded and fetched him three pills, two Tylenol and one

Gravol along with a half glass of water. He swallowed all without

any questions.

It was worse, that he was so quiet. She would have preferred

the usual arguments of yesteryear. But wanting him to sleep

undisturbed, she said nothing about the unsolicited sleep aid.

After his eyes closed, he was out in a flat minute.

Scully looked at her watch: eleven-twenty-one AM.

"Director Skinner? Sir?"

Scully had to track him down at home since it

was Saturday.

"Scully." He sounded surprised. She hadn't

called him in over a year, and then it had

pertained to work. Over the last two years

their paths had rarely crossed.

She cleared her throat.

"How are you?" He asked before she had the

opportunity to speak further.

"Ah, I'm fine, Sir,...I ...uh...I need to

see you."

"Well, is it something you can tell me

over the phone?, I have a plane to catch in

two hours."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Sir, but...this is...I,...

I don't think I can handle this on my own..."

She cleared her throat, it was hard to say.

"...it's very important."

Skinner's silence at the other end told her

his "spidey sense" had just activated. "I can

cancel the flight. What's going on?"

Scully, took a breath and let it out.

It was morning. A new day.

Mulder had slept for fourteen hours straight

in her guest bedroom and was now sitting in her

livingroom, slumped on her couch, drinking gallons

of Sunny Delight and idly flipping through the

television channels. She heard "Chicken and Cow".

Looked like he'd finally stumbled upon something

not too emotionally taxing.

They hadn't really talked much that morning when

he'd finally awakened. He had politely asked to use

the washroom and then, declining the bacon and eggs

she'd prepared, she had fed him a bowl of Cherrios.

He'd then eaten bowl after bowl, starving, managing

to put away the entire box. But it wouldn't be enough

to pack meat back on his accordion-like chest.

Nothing much else had been said.

She'd watched him eat and then settle into her couch

like he planned on staying there for a long, long time.

And that frightened her. Mulder back in her apartment,

sitting on her couch like nothing had happened.

So, at the first opportunity, she'd slipped into her

bedroom and dialed a few numbers, speaking quietly

so as not to disturb him. She sensed somehow that,

for Mulder, right now anything other than peace and

quiet would be a bad thing.

Skinner was waiting.

"He's home, sir. He's back." Scully heard nothing for

two seconds.

"I'll be there in thirty."

"Is he awake?" Skinner entered her apartment building.

It wasn't yet noon.

Scully had quietly padded down and met her old boss at

the bulding's entrance, wanting that few seconds of

privacy to bring him up to date on the extraordinary

event of Mulder's return.

"Yes, but he's not okay."

"Are you?" He asked and it surprised her. She'd given

no thought to herself except for the tingle of fear

that had sprung to life and settled down in her psyche,

prompting her call to him.

A stranger with Mulder's face had woke up in her

apartment and ate her food. The Bus Station Mulder

was gone and she didn't know precisely why that was.

Scully did not know who sat in her living room now.

Mulder of yesterday, kissing her and at least somewhat

like the norm was now a silent body sitting in jeans

and faded out, ragged T-shirt denting her furniture.

She'd laundered his meager wardrobe while he'd slept.

Had contemplated slipping out and buying him some things

to wear but was afraid to, not wanting him waking up alone.

He might panic.

One year ago, she'd thrown out the last few items of

Mulder's clothing that had hung unused in her second bedroom

closet. It had been one last painful task. She'd thrust them

into a black garbage bag, quickly tied it and tossed it in

the bin out back. And then cried for an hour and a half.

So, nothing else to wear, he'd dressed in the rags in which

she'd found him. He sat and said nothing. A presence with

empty eyes filling up on cartoons.

Very scary.

Scully re-entered her apartment and stepped aside to

allow Skinner access and a clear first view of his old agent.

Mulder heard the door open and close and twisted around to

greet them both. "Sir?" He didn't stand as he would have

years ago. He just stared, a bit surprised but that was all.

"Mulder." Skinner kept his voice even and pleasant. He

didn't ask for Scully's permission but just seated himself

opposite the man-with-a-problem.

Looking at his old agent while trying to not stare, it

was hard to reconcile this current example with the Mulder

of eight years ago.

Skinner absorbed and recorded the pale face, the dark

bags, the expressionless, far away look in the older eyes,

and, through the holes in his shirt, the ribcage that

looked like it could barely hold the organs inside. "It's

good to see you."

A fucking miracle is what it was.

"You too, sir."

Scully seated herself next to Skinner. It gave her strength

for what they were about to do. Hard things were about to be

said and soon to occur and there was no choice in them.

An overwhelming sadness enveloped her as she sat beside

Skinner's confident control. He'd taken the situation in hand

and thank god because she could barely trust herself to

speak. She wanted to scream.

Because life was so goddamn unfair.

Because she wanted Mulder.

She wanted back Special Agent Fox Mulder and he wasn't there.

Her old partner, she wanted, in their old office in their old

life. She wanted him back in his gorgeous skin draped in Armani

pants hanging sexily from his masculine hips.

She wanted the humor and the smile and the eyes that hurt.

She wanted that old arrogant prick who always thought he

was right about everything.

She wanted anything but the abused and lifeless husk staring

dully at them both from across the coffee table.

"You want to talk about this? You want to tell me what's

happened?"

Scully's chest tightened at Skinner's questions. They were

F.B.I Director's questions and she wondered if they would

carry any meaning to Mulder.

"Why are you here, sir?" Mulder asked the big man.

Skinner glanced to his left as Scully answered.

"Mulder, I think - we think - you should be taken to a

hospital so you can be checked out."

Mulder frowned a little, looked down at himself as if

trying to see what they were seeing, trying to find what

it was that was worrying them.

"I'm okay, Scully. I may be a bit thin but otherwise

I'm just tired. I just need a few days."

"A few days and then...what?" Skinner asked.

Mulder looked at him and could give no detailed answer

to such an open question. "And then Uh-I'll see."

Skinner removed his glasses, rubbed fingers across

his eyes, trying once again to see into the mind of a

man he'd never been able to.

Scully watched the exchange. Skinner had aged as

they all had, but had done so well. Salt and pepper hair

fringe, the slightest thickening of the middle but

otherwise as straight, self-assured and sharp as ever.

"Mulder, you've been gone, vanished, missing for

eight years. Eight YEARS. Then yesterday you show

up, at a bus station of all places, without any

explanation." Skinner pointed out.

Mulder was acting like he'd gotten lost on vacation.

"I need some rest, that's all."

Scully pleaded. "Mulder, no. You are not well. You

don't even sound like yourself."

She found strength enough to crouch before him and

take one of his boney hands in her own, resting both

on his thigh. "Something terrible has happened to you

and we have to find out what it is. We have to find

out who did this to you."

"I'm back, Scully." He spoke it as if he couldn't

understand what all the fuss was about and it hit

her like a hammer. He wanted it to be enough for them.

Clearly he felt it should be. "And you promised me you

wouldn't ask."

"You can't just expect us to sit here and accept that

you're back to pick up where you left off and that

everything's normal." Skinner said.

"All I expect is to be left alone to rest for a few

days. I just need rest and,.." Mulder's words faltered

as his mind did, as it couldn't give them the logical

plans that should have been there, "..just tired. I'll

figure out the rest as I go."

"Mulder..." Scully started, stopped. Felt helpless.

"I'm okay, Scully, really." He pasted on his best

"See? I'm perfectly fine" face.

"No, you're not. You're thin, you look sick..."

"Why are you fighting this, Agent Mulder?"

Mulder threw black pupils at Skinner. "I'm not your

agent anymore." Turned to Scully, intending to ignore

Skinner from that second forward.

"Scully. Let's go away somewhere. I don't care,

anywhere. You pick the place. I meant what I said.

Let's just go. Cash in all our securities, I'll

sell all the properties and we'll leave, we'll

just get out of here."

"Mulder. There is no cash. All your securities

were liquidated. I had to. The taxes on your

parents houses, your mother's medicals bills,...

there's nothing left."

He stuttered in his efforts to convince. "Then,...um,

...I'll get a juh-job."

Scully saw his eyes watering, darting around the

room, getting scared. It was heartbreaking, what

was happening to him. Mulder wasn't himself. He hadn't

even asked her about his dead mother.

That was not like Mulder.

Not at all like Special Agent F.B.I man who looked out

for the innocent and chased the bad guys, trying to make

the world a better place while trying to understand why

things had to be that way.

Her former partner who could remember what kind

of cake he had for his fourth birthday but couldn't

count how many times he had lost his gun.

Her friend who had endured the destruction of his

whole family and had still walked into work each day

like he had a purpose.

The man she loved who used to be.

Her heart was tearing.

Because the sweet little fantasy in which she'd been

indulging for the last twenty hours was now at an end.

The meeting at the bus station, the overwhelming

joy in seeing him, his talk of marriage and her teary,

emotion-blinded answers that had nothing to do with

the deep pain she'd seen behind his eyes, the sharing

in his warm, loving, lips,...all of that was being

replaced by cruel practicalities.

Reality had just brought its fist down.

Mulder was sick in body and possibly in mind.

He was forty-five years old, out of a job and flat

broke.

The obstacles before him, before them both, were

enormous.

She wanted to sob.

"And do what?" Skinner pointed out to him.

Mulder didn't even look at his old boss. "I

don't care, anything. Scully?"

She sensed he was questioning her, asking her:

What's wrong? Did you lie to me when you said

you'd marry me? Was everything a lie? Was I wrong

to come back? Am I crazy?

Scully couldn't stop her own grief then, at his

frightened, needful eyes.

Give me something, Scully. He was saying as her tears

rolled unstoppably.

"Mulder..." Helpless. Mute. Guilty as charged.

Everything she'd said to him in the station had

been swept away by the call to Skinner.

Mulder was very ill. Ill and maybe even dying.

Three souls, one broken. The acknowledgment of it

settled over the healthy two like a Cloth of Mourning.

The guilt. The sorrow. What could she or any have done

for him anyway - really? A few kisses and everything would

be just fine? Is that what she had thought?

How shortsighted. How lovesick. How stupid.

"Do you want our help?" Skinner asked him.

"I was hoping, yeah." Mulder answered, tentatively. He

was unaware of the decisions secretly being made for him.

He did not feel the Grieving Blanket.

"Then I think we should make sure you're really okay."

Skinner answered.

"A physical exam, Mulder? Okay? Just to be sure."

Scully urged.

"That's all?" Mulder asked, suddenly wary, watchful,

mistrustful.

"Yes."

Mulder nodded once. "Okay, but I want Scully to do it."

"Why Scully?" Skinner wanted to know.

"Because that's what I want."

"Okay." Scully shot Skinner a warning look as if to say

it was the least they could do. "Okay, but I'll need help.

Will you let me choose a friend, a practicing doctor? One

who'll keep it under wraps? I can't do that kind of

examination without the proper equipment and somewhere to

do it."

Mulder nodded, once, reluctantly. "But I want to be awake

the whole time."

Of course. He wouldn't want to be under anyone's control

anymore. Did not want to be vulnerable or helpless. Ever

again.

Scully realised this.

She also knew that would be impossible.

Making herself a liar, she nodded. They had to know,

whatever it took, they had to know if he was really all right.

Scully studied Mulder's eyes. They had an alertness within

despite the drug. She'd talked him into a sleeping draught

just to lessen the discomfort he might feel from some parts

of the exam and it had taken her fifteen minutes to convince

him of that. No way was he going to accept anything stronger.

Finally locating Doctor Roberta Nizarhan, an old and trusted

former "what-the-hell-ever-made-us-consider-medical-school?!"

pal, they had set up in her private and well equipped clinic.

Mulder had followed Scully in with tiny cat steps, hugging the

walls and staring suspiciously at Nizarhan.

One bad move on anyone's part and he'd be out the door. Now

he lay shivering in a disposable open-at-the-back gown on the

padded examination table. The clinic was closed for the night.

They hadn't even begun and Scully was already dead tired

just from the constant strain of a whole day of bearing his

mistrustful questions about what would be done to him. The

pressure-cooked anxiety had given her a headache.

Skinner had declined to join the midnight medical duo on

their intended quest and returned home. It was passed midnight

and he had an early day but had insisted more than once that

she phone him on his cellular with the results when all the

tests were complete.

Scully decided she would fill him in, in person. Skinner'd

been there from the beginning, when all this had started.

There when it had begun all those years and years ago. The

day a clean cut, brilliant agent just inching out of studness

walked into Skinner's office and shook his hand.

The A.D.'s newest underling, just escaped from three years

in a purgatory called Violent Crimes where head Devil was bald

and wore a trench coat, had proved an Enigma with a capital E.

And that intelligent, good-looking, smart-as-they-make-'em

former analyst then proceeded to turn Walter Skinner, Deputy

Assistant Director of the F.B.I.'s world upside down. Had

Skinner managed a decent night sleep post-Mulder? Scully

doubted it.

But Mulder'd gotten away with his sabotaging of rules with

suprisingly smooth-sailing. It was some innate ability or an

aura he'd projected that made some people want to ruffle his

hair and all but say "Try to be a good boy.".

He'd limp up to Skinner's pool table sized desk, hand over

the case he and Scully had closed after risking life and limb,

apologize for the lateness of it, ease himself painfully down

into an empty chair and wait for the reaming.

Not very often had Skinner availed himself of that release.

Not very often.

Maybe it was the muted, decades old pain beneath Mulder's

brows that caused people, young and old, to want to either bake

him cookies or nuzzle his cheek. Even some male colleagues,

including one former FBI Assistant Director boss-man, had

done their best to protect him, advise him, lessen the risks

around him, body and soul.

Skinner had been there at the germination of the Mulder/Scully

years and she would keep him in the loop now. Especially since

she knew he was mad as hell at whoever had done this to one of

his.

Because he cared.

And because she needed his support to keep herself together.

Scully prepared the little sample bags and slides they

would need for the exam at a small counter, her back turned

on Mulder. But in the small mirror above the sink, she could

see him now sweating in nervousness, his eyes raking the

ceiling and walls as if looking for an opening, an easy escape

if the walls started closing in, the sky started falling or if

things didn't go as he liked.

Scully'd left the door open hoping to lesson the feel of

claustrophobia in the room, one not meant to hold a patient

and two doctors.

"Oh, damn." She said.

Nizarhan, the dark-haired second physician in question,

looked up from her microscope that she'd been adjusting.

"What?"

"I left something in the car." Scully looked sideways at

Roberta, who knew by long years that the shift in Scully's

eyes said otherwise. It said they needed to talk privately.

Scully touched, very lightly, Mulder's shoulder, "I'll be

right back. Two minutes, okay?"

He only nodded.

One minute later, Doctor Nizarhan left the room and joined

Scully down the hall out of earshot of the patient.

"What's going on, Dana?"

"I want to see him completely under. I don't want him to be

aware."

"But I thought-"

"-I know. But there are some tests I need to do that we

can't if he's conscious, some that would be very distressing

to him. Not to mention uncomfortable."

"Okay. I take it, though, he doesn't want that? That's why

we're out here, whispering like a couple of med-students?"

"Yes. But if you distract him for a second, I can inject

him. He'd be out in about five seconds."

"Five seconds is a long time if he gets violent."

"All we have to do is hold his arms and legs for that time,

he won't be able to move." Sadly, "He's weak."

"He is going to be very ticked when he wakes up."

Scully nodded, cleared her throat. "Yes. But it can't be

helped. We have to know-", /Breaking another promise? You're

getting good at it Dana./ "-there's no choice."

"Well, it may be my arena but it your game. Let's do it."

Nizarhan said.

It hadn't gone as easily as they'd hoped, but after two

curse words and lots of twisting, Mulder had slumped back

like a sack of flour. Nizarhan breathed a sigh of relief.

And was shocked when they peeled back the examination

gown to reveal the man's chest. Someone had sliced him up

like a pie.

Nizarhan watched Dana stroke the drugged man's forehead

with her thumb two, three times. Nizarhan was struck by the

compassion in the gesture. It was old affection she was seeing

and also that this situation was a repeat for both of them.

Scully nodded, as if satisfied that he was under deeply

enough to begin.

"Okay, I want pictures first. External exam, every square

centimeter."

"You make it sound like we're about to autopsy him."

"We are. But without an internal obviously, so I want

X-Rays. I wish we had access to MRI."

"Sorry, can't help you there, I'm just a clinical physician.

I can brew you a kick-ass cup of coffee though."

Scully smiled. "That would be great. I know I'll need it."

Referring to the intended examination, "What else?" Nizarhan

asked.

"I want blood gasses, bone marrow, skin, and hair samples.

Umm, muscle tissue too. And X-Rays, EEG, EKG, liver and

kidney tissue chemical analysis, sperm and saliva samples,

stomach lining,...I want bronchial and lung tissue visuals..."

"Wait, wait, are you kidding me? Do you know how long all

this is going to take?"

"As long as it takes. This is important."

"What are you not telling me?"

Scully pulled on non-latex examination gloves. "Ask me when

we're done."

Nizarhan didn't follow suit. "This is going to take all

night, just the basics even. Getting the samples analyzed

is on your time. Friend or no, Dana, you're gonna owe me big

for this one."

"Name it." she answered succinctly.

Nizarhan kept her mind on the task of preparing a strong

pot of caffeine, but made a mental note: to watch Dana as much

as the patient. She was very curious about Dana's connection

with this man. He was Dana's former partner, yes, she understood

that and that Dana wanted to help out an old friend. But

something more was here, in the background, something very

deep and very important.

The coffee pot was set to brewing and she heard Dana crumple

up the patient's gown.

Nizarhan noted that her friend had laid a clean hand towel

over the man's groin. It was unnecessary as he was out cold but

she understood the gesture of respect for the poor guy's privacy.

Nizarhan pulled on her own gloves and proceeded with her task

of external examination while Scully placed an oxygen mask over

Mulder's nose and mouth.

Christ almighty. The scars. Nizarhan catalogued each and

every sign of foreign penetration of the surface while Scully

handled the overhead photo machine.

He had a nice skin. A smooth, still relatively youthful skin.

But he was thin to the point of skinny and every square foot or

so, Nizarhan would find another old wound marring the perfection.

It was a shame. He was a real looker.

Stark evidence of past cruelties looked back at her as she

made notations of each and every mark or irregularity. But the

scars were what got to her, blunt, stare-back-at-you brandings.

No portion of his body had been left virgin.

Left shoulder, left upper thigh: old bullet wounds.

Right shoulder, outside right lower thigh, right forearm:

deep knife penetrations.

Right side of face: faint scar over brow line. Small white scar

at the left corner of the bottom lip.

Palms of the hands - what looked like severe rug burn

scars - the pads of his fingers had actually been rubbed smooth

on several didgits.

Left side of head: a deep, gouge behind the ear, long healed.

She wondered what the x-rays of his skull would reveal.

But the worst, the scar that made her stomach chill and roll,

was the long, even-edged slice that began to the side of and

slightly below his left nipple, curved down and around, only

ending up just above his groin.

Another two inches and he'd have been divested of his manhood.

It had been an hateful and inhuman assault. It had not been deep,

but it must have bled and it sure as hell must have hurt. Sometimes

those "clean" cuts were the worst.

The perpetrator had given it to this man to carry for the rest

of his days. And maybe to bear the memory of it's infliction each

time he looked at himself after a shower.

These were memories that could only temporarily be hidden and

forgotten about beneath clothing.

"Finished?" Scully's question brought Nizarhan out of her

private, unscientific thoughts.

"Um, yeah, I'm finished."

"Okay, now we flip him and the same for the back."

"All right," Nizarhan crossed Mulder's legs, one over the

other and Scully folded his hands on his chest. "Ready, roll him."

The table was wide and Mulder, limp as cooked spaghetti, was no

difficulty for the two women.

Scully took a moment to ensure he was comfortably positioned.

Nizarhan again watched her friend take the extra time to do

things of which an unconscious man could neither be aware nor

appreciate.

Scully took her samples, this time not of skin and hair, blood

and stomach cells, but of bone marrow, semen and feces. Nizarhan

kept her tone neutral as she watched Scully extract an Anal

Spreader from the utility tray behind her. "You must be checking

for something else in there." Nizarhan commented.

Numbly, "Trauma." Scully said, giving her a look that said

I'll tell you if you want. Nizarhan neither shook her head nor

nodded.

Scully inserted the thin cable of an Optioscope into Mulder's

rectum and peered into the viewfinder. The tissue was covered

with scars. Strange, long dark marks, as if someone had shoved

a metal hairbrush up into him and twisted it around before

yanking it out.

Scully's hands shook as she pulled the Scope out slowly, not

wanting to add to the damage.

"Well?" Nizarhan took the instrument from her friends fingers.

Scully nodded.

"I'm really sorry, Dana."

"It's okay. He's home now. He's safe." She discarded her old

gloves.

"Can I ask what happened to him or is it some Government

secret?" Tried to lighten the atmosphere and watched it fail

miserably when Nizarhan got the answer she hadn't really

expected.

"He was held captive and beaten for years. Tortured maybe,

we think. There may have been some...violent rape involved."

Scully pointed to two curved very faint lines on his upper left

shoulder blade that appeared to be a human bite mark. "I want

pictures of that. Maybe a forensic computer can extrapolate

the form of the bite. Maybe we'll luck out and can get a

dental record."

"Jesus." Nizarhan whispered. /No wonder you wanted him

under./ She swallowed, her gag reflex hinting at an

opposite action, noting on her little pad the bite marks,

then positioning the camera over them.

Pulling on fresh gloves, Scully pulled over another machine

on rollers. "Okay, X-Rays now." Scully took their attention

back to getting it all done. Time was short as the clock

struck five. In two hours, Nizarhan and junior partners would

have a waiting room full of patients, all wanting attention.

An hour later, when the films were developed, Nizarhan saw

what she had expected to see. Several old head injuries and

one newer one which must have concussed. Also clear indications

of a compound fracture of his left Ulna, two fingers of his

right hand and each and every rib. Nizarhan shook her head.

Christ, would the list of injuries never cease?

"Let's clean him up." Scully announced when at last they

were done.

"I can't stay for that. I have a meeting in an hour. You've

got about forty-five minutes to bring him out of it and get

out of here. Here's the keys and the alarm code. Make sure

you're gone before my secretary shows. You can drop the keys

off to me later here."

"I'm sorry this took so long. I can't tell you how grateful

I am for your help."

Impulsively, she hugged Scully. "Take care of your friend,

Dana. You owe me a night on the town. I want to visit every

sleazy bar in this damn city." /I want to forget I ever

participated in this scary shit/.

Scully smiled. "You've got it."

Scully tidied up and, before waking him, gave Mulder a

quick sponge bath to remove the stains of iodine around

the tiny wounds made from the skin and muscle biopsy sites.

She checked the small gauzes she'd taped over them to make

sure they would stay put.

Mulder was still lying on his stomach and out like a light.

Time was short yet Scully lingered over drying him off. Her

small hand towel gently rubbed cheeks, the small of his back

and across his shoulders. Turned him and repeated her minist-

rations.

She had just performed a living autopsy on her best friend.

Just invaded and pilfered pieces of him without his consent

in an attempt to discover the identity of his tormenters who

had pillaged him, body and soul.

The irony of it was not lost on her.

She wanted to touch him with magical fingers and remove the

evidence of her intrusions into his privacy and human rights

which had been repeatedly violated in this room.

"I'm sorry." She whispered into his unconscious ear. Kissed

his shoulder, a light peck. "I am sorry I had to do this to

you, Mulder. I am so very, very sorry."

"So how is he?" Skinner nursed cold coffee

in a Styrofoam cup. He'd shed his trench coat

and they both sat facing each other in the quiet

of his BMG outside her apartment. "I'm running

out of excuses for postponing my meeting."

Scully had phoned Skinner's cellular, waking him up

from a sound sleep late Sunday evening, and requested

his assistance.

Early that morning, after struggling a groggy Mulder

home to her apartment, she'd sedated him again and

left him to sleep the day away while she delivered her

tiny biopsies of him to a pathologist friend. Both had

then worked 14 hours to elicit the results she now

held in her hand.

Scully knew it was time to let common sense lead

and decided a hospital was what Mulder needed. As much

as she hated the idea of him being out of her direct care.

As much as she knew he would hate her for it.

A still unconscious Mulder faced her upon returning

home and getting him out to her own car alone would be

impossible.

Contacting Skinner again seemed the best course,

circumstances being what they were...

Pathologies showing what they did...

Again he'd canceled his flight out for her and came.

When was the day, month and year that Skinner had

become to her more than former superior and colleague?

All she knew was she needed his help and she thanked God

each time Skinner answered his phone; each time he drove

up to her door.

Together they hauled Mulder out once again and now he

lay on his side in the back seat of Skinners brand new

vehicle, long legs curled up, still in drugged sleep.

Without any real agreed-on plan, Skinner started the

engine and started driving more or less in the direction

of Mercy Memorial Hospital.

Scully filled him in. "Physically, the only definite

conclusion that can be drawn is that, due to the number

and nature of the injuries that were inflicted including

multiple broken bones and some very serious invasive

wounds..."

Skinner waited patiently for Scully to complete her

step by step itemization of Mulder's physical damage.

By experience he understood she was maneuvering toward

the worst news.

"...it seems likely he was systematically tortured

or at least beaten on a regular basis during the time

of his abduction."

Her voice was dead-pan. She was reciting the horrors

for him for the first time and the dozenth time for herself.

"There are scars indicating stabbings - deep wounds.

At one point he suffered a broken jaw as well as five

broken ribs somewhere along the way. A fractured arm

and fingers. Numerous head injuries, some which had

concussed..."

"Scully-"

She stopped and looked at him. He kept his eyes on

the road. "He's still alive. What about his mental and

emotional state?"

"Well, you saw, sir. Mentally, I believe he is unstable

but without the intervention of a trained psychologist,.."

She left off. Then swinging it back around, "We did, however,

discover something very disturbing in his blood work."

Skinner's stomach turned over. "What?"

"What appear to be antibodies in his cells. Specifically,

in the DNA, what could be called a fingerprint. Indications

are these antibodies are the result of a viral infection of

some kind the nature of which we thus far have not been

able to identify."

Skinner shook his head. Not a shake of disagreement, but

one of sadness. "Is he dying?"

Scully swallowed - a painful throat lump refused to

move - shook her head. "No. But we can't pin down the

pathology of the infection. Before we put him out, I asked

Mulder about it. He remembers being sick but that's all

he's able to tell us."

"I'd like to know how he made it back at all. That's a

question we haven't asked."

"I don't think he wants to talk about it, either because

it's too painful or maybe because he doesn't remember."

"This is bizarre." Skinner said. "What was the purpose?"

"You mean behind his kidnaping?"

"Yes. No demands were made. If they wanted the X-Files

shut down for good, why not just kill him? Why all this?"

Scully wondered too. About all of it. Mulder had walked

into Chilmark, she knew that much by seeing the black, cut

bottoms of his feet after she'd removed his sneakers.

No one had stopped to give him a ride. No one would.

Seeing a lone man stumbling barefoot along a highway in

the middle of the night?

Mental patient. Loser. Drifter. Nut. Steer clear.

That's what they - what anyone - would have been bound

to conclude.

And she, Doctor Scully, trained pathologist, forensic

scientist, had helped Mulder wash away any trace evidence

(anything that might have existed to give them a clue to

the identity of his abductors and abusers) right down the

drain.

Given him a bath!

Stupid.

All she had thought of last night was getting him home,

somewhere safe. A place she could keep watch over him.

Comfort and help and heal him. Heal herself a little too,

she now recognized.

Gathering evidence had crossed her mind, but it had taken

a secondary position to wrapping him in her arms and hugging

out the Boogie-men.

It had been a serious error, one she had confessed to

Skinner soon after his arrival at her apartment yesterday

morning.

He had huffed, not angrily, but in disappointment, and

then he had understood. This was Mulder, her old friend and

partner. And - Skinner had inferred from the silent

confession of her watery eyes - her love.

She'd acted impulsively, with her heart instead of her

head. Anyone would be forgiven for it once in a career.

"Sir, these antibodies,.. Mulder has been infected with

something. It is unidentifiable. It matches no DNA on record.

Yet it's left behind a fingerprint, it's own genetic string

INSIDE his cellular DNA. One which cannot be classified."

Skinner blinked. "Are you saying his DNA has been altered?

Or what he has may be contagious?" When she didn't answer, he asked

the question they'd both been tip-toe-ing around since the

conversation began. "Are you saying it's extraterrestrial?"

Frustrated, Scully spread her hands. "I don't know. Where

has he been? Eight years. In eight years, wouldn't we have

found something? Some kind of lead? He disappeared without one

trace. No clues what-so-ever. Nothing."

"It happens to thousands of children every year around

the world Agent Scully."

"Those are children. This is a grown man. This is Mulder.

Since when would Mulder not have somehow gotten to a phone?

Sent a message? In a bottle if he had to. Even escaped somehow?"

"We thought he was dead, Scully. Dead people don't send

messages."

Scully remembered dreams. In one such dream - god so long

ago now - she'd dreamed of Mulder whom everyone thought was

dead, a Mulder telling her he was all right.

No such dreams had come to her this time.

Nightmares, yes.

Skinner was talking. "Well, until we can gather evidence

to point us to how or who, I think there's only one question

left: What now?"

Skinner was asking her, she realized, the question not a

rhetorical one. In the case of Mulder's physical and mental

health, Skinner was leaving her in command.

"I don't know. I mean..." Scully shook her head, looked

at her hands, chapped from washing them again and again all

that morning long in between cutting away tiny pieces of her old

partner. "This, this is so much...it's enormous. Do I take

him home? Do I stick him in a halfway house, pay the landlady

and visit every Sunday? Do I let him walk away..." She bit

her lip and choked back the pain, "...and hope for the best?

I don't know. I just... don't know."

Skinner heaved a weary sigh, afraid for the emotional health

of one Dana Scully and not just the rediscovered Mulder

who was, as far as he could see, fast slipping through the

cracks of ever re-establishing a foothold anywhere back in

his old life. Skinner felt sorry for both of them.

Scully clipped her forgotten seatbelt in place. "Let's just

take him to Mercy...we'll figure something out."

It was 10:55 PM on a Sunday and although Skinner could

think of a more appropriate type of institution for Mulder

he didn't argue.

Maneuvering the car through sparse traffic and pointing

its nose in the right direction, they rode in silence for

a while.

"What's going on?" It was a slurred, sleepy voice. Mulder

pushed himself to a sitting position behind them.

Scully stiffened. She readied herself for the verbal lashing

she figured was coming her way for breaking her promise to

him at the clinic.

"You put me out." Mulder spoke quietly, but his voice was

a broken hinge. "How could you do that? - put me out - lie?"

"Mulder-" Scully started.

His tone was accusing and pained. "Now you'll tell me it

was for my own good. Well, you had no goddamn right deciding

for me what was for my own good."

"Mulder-" Skinner was about to explain, in Directors

fashion, Scully's decision.

"This is none of your business!" Mulder spat. He was angry.

Really angry but said nothing more, settling into the back

seat, allowing the silence to return.

There was a momentary truce.

For several minutes they rode that way.

Until Mulder tried his window control and found it didn't

work. "Roll down my window."

"There was an inversion today. It smells like hell out there."

Skinner informed him.

"I don't care. Just do it please. I'd like open air. I don't

want to be closed in."

Scully listened to Mulder's quickened breathing. Skinner

disengaged the window locks and Mulder opened his window all

the way. He seemed to breath easier after that.

Until Skinner auto-locked all the doors.

Mulder jumped when the little knobby on his door frame

dipped down with a click. It was the kind that sat flush

with the door-frame and there was no way to pinch it between

finger and thumb in order to pop it back up. "Why are you

locking the doors?"

"We're in Washington, Mulder." Skinner said, unable to

keep a trace of sarcasm and irritation out of his voice.

Yeah, they were in Washington, but Skinner also didn't

like the idea of a skittish Mulder sitting in his car with

his door unlocked. Bad enough he had his window open.

"Open it. Unlock my door." Mulder demanded. He didn't

make requests anymore.

"We're almost there." Scully said, twisting in her

seat and saw Mulder's chalk white face. He was really

scared.

"Almost where? Just unlock it!" Mulder was trying the

door handle now, jerking at it like if he did it enough

times, the door would miraculously pop open for him.

"What difference does it make?" Skinner made a last effort.

"Do it! Unlock this door, goddamn-it! Open this fucking

door or I'll break it!" Mulder was wide-eyed and reefing

both rear door handles. He wanted out. Any second, Scully

expected him to launch himself out the window and onto the

freeway.

"Okay!" Skinner unlocked the doors then did two more things.

He took an off-ramp into a deserted business suburb and then,

slowed the vehicle right down to a crawl.

When the car slowed enough, Mulder wrenched his door open

and jumped out, running like the hunted down a paved alley.

The BMG's headlights shone eerily on his retreating form

as he quickly disappeared into night shadow.

Skinner had expected it. As well as what occurred next.

Scully also jumped out. "M-U-U-L-D-E-R! Mulder, where are

you going!?"

She was about to run after him, but Skinner stepped around

to the passenger side of the car and took her arm. "Scully.

Let him go. We have no right to detain him."

"What? Sir, the man is sick! He needs help!"

"But he still has the right to refuse that help." Skinner

said what he'd wanted to say to her since this whole business

started. "Maybe you should face the possibility that Mulder

doesn't want our help."

"He doesn't know what he wants, Skinner, he's ill." She

stared defiantly. "Mulder phoned me! I'm going after him."

Scully pulled her arm free and ran down the alley.

"Jesus." Skinner sighed, slammed the passenger door, got

into the drivers seat and followed her at what he hoped was,

to Mulder, a non-threatening distance.

Skinner drove between buildings, searching with eyes straining

into the inadequately lit alleyways until he saw them both. He

parked and got out but didn't approach them.

Mulder was sitting on the lowest step of a back entrance

to a warehouse and Scully was crouched before him, her hands

holding both of his tightly. He was crying. Skinner could

see the glisten on his cheeks and hear the murmur of their

quietly exchanged words.

Scully clasped his hands for all she was worth. She wanted

to hold him but knew he would not allow it. She wanted to fix

him - his hurt - all of it, but she was unable. "Mulder. I'm

sorry."

He was silently weeping. Scully had never seen him cry so

much. In all the years she'd worked with him she'd watched

him cry three times.

The first time was when he was convinced his mother was

dying and, get himself killed though he almost did trying

to save her, he could do nothing to stop it.

The second was when he had failed to unearth his long buried

memories of his sister's abduction, even after the radical

"treatment" he had undergone which was to allow a Quack shrink

drill a hole in his skull. Doc "Tool-Time" would be undertaking

no more such operations from the jail cell where Scully had helped

put him.

The third and last was that late night Mulder came to her in

the days of her cancer and wept at her hospital bedside.

She'd awakened briefly to her hand wet with his tears and

her mattress trembling from his shaking but had been too weak

to comfort him in his display of grief or to even open her eyes

and smile so he would see her gratitude and feel better for it.

"Mulder. I'm sorry. I know you're scared to death about

what's happened to you. I'm scared too, I'm terrified. But I

don't know what to do."

He gently pulled one hand from her grasp and wiped his

eyes, trying to calm himself and pull together. He nodded.

"I'm forty-five years old, Scully." He sniffed.

She pulled a tissue from her jacket pocket and handed it

to him. He took it and wiped his eyes and nose, not looking at

her. "Forty-five years old."

He seemed to think that explained everything.

Scully understood.

He had come back to life only to find himself older. Without

a home. Without family, job, purpose or reason for being. That's

what he meant.

"That doesn't mean your life is over. You still have me."

That just seemed to make him sadder. "Not for long." He

said and looked over to where Skinner was standing by the

car. "The boss is waiting."

Scully would broach his cryptic comment later. For now,

he needed peace and quiet. And more rest. Hospitals and

doctors and more prodding and more tests later. Soon, but

not right now.

"Are you going to let us help you or fight us? We'll do

it your way, Mulder, if you want. If you want to walk away,

you can. If you want our help, then you're going to have

to trust us. You're going to have to trust me, as hard as

that is, even though I've failed you, even though I went

against your wishes."

Mulder nodded and stood up. He was shaky and he leaned

on her. Scully was grateful for the physical contact. It

felt good just to know he trusted her still, that much.

"Let's get you home. Then in a few days, I'm taking you

to a hospital."

Mulder nodded vaguely, sagging into a restless sleep

almost the minute she got him again into the back seat

of the car.

"Take us back home." She said.

Skinner frowned and silently did what she asked. After

getting turned around and back onto the freeway, he broached

the subject. "You know where we should be taking him, don't you?

Right now?"

"Yes." She whispered back.

Skinner dropped his voice right down, following her lead

and her worried expression. She did not want Mulder waking

up. "He needs to be in a place where he can get the proper

help."

"A mental hospital you mean? Absolutely not. If he needs

that kind of treatment, he can get it through a regular ward

or on an out-patient basis." She swallowed. "And he can stay

with me-" Scully looked pointedly at Skinner, "- for as

long as he needs to."

"You're biting off more than you can chew, here, Agent

Scully. And if you had an ounce of sense where Mulder was

concerned, you'd see that I was right. You can't handle

this on your own."

"Mulder is going to be fine." She spoke the lie. Mulder

had seemed to get it together somewhat back there and she

was hanging onto that tiny glimmer of sanity for dear life.

"You ignore common sense when it comes to Mulder. You

always have." Skinner offered. He had often admired her

loyalty to the man. And on not a few occasions indulged

in a bite of jealousy over the close relationship Mulder

had built with the smart, pretty agent and doctor. He'd

often, in fact, wanted to kick Mulder's ass half-way

across Washington for not opening his eyes to what he had

standing right before him instead of racing around half-

cocked after aliens and monsters.

Now here she was still protecting Mulder. Still

taking the risk for no reward other than his continence.

Or was there more between them? Had something more

developed prior to Mulder's disappearance that would

explain her obsession with the man?

As much as he hated to admit it, very probably there

had been. Some kind of intimacy, if not physical, then

something that would explain five years of sacrifices

made for him. Sacrifices that went far beyond duty,

loyalty or even friendship.

In her quiet, private way Scully had grown to love

the man, that much was clear.

Mulder, on the other hand, had been transparent.

He'd loved her from the beginning.

But that's where it had seemed to end. No other forward

steps and none taken in reverse. Either of them.

In Skinner's opinion, Mulder could not be an easy man to

love. Brilliant, yes. Loyal, if you suited his particular

quest, if you proved yourself, if you opened your soul and

displayed your trustworthiness to him on a squeaky-clean

platter.

Skinner knew something of the Mulder family. Powerful and

rich father. Socializing but prim, distant mother.

A sister.

For dozens of years a sister who existed only in Mulder's

memory as a bright, happy girl child which image he kept

wrapped in flowered tissue paper somewhere deep down where

no-one else was allowed to peek.

Not, Skinner was certain, even Scully.

Skinner also knew of Mulder's upbringing. Knew there had

been intellectual encouragement. Had to have been for Mulder

to have done so well as to be accepted into Oxford, graduate

with honors and be recruited into the F.B.I.., quickly shooting

to the top of his specialty by becoming the best analyst in

the field of Violent Crimes at - how old had he been? -

twenty-eight? In any field of law enforcement, that was still

a kid.

All the necessary things for sucess had been inculcated

into the young Fox but also present had been fists, belts

and bruises.

Maybe part of Scully's love for the man had been for the

broken soul she perceived beneath the hooded eyes and the

arrogant middle finger Mulder'd thrust at the world and

all who dwelled there. Maybe she had felt sorry for him.

Maybe underpinning her attraction and sparking feelings for

the tall, handsome agent had been pity. And a doctor's desire

to heal.

Mulder had become her project.

"He needs peace and quiet. I'm going to have to take some

time off work...tomorrow, if he needs it, the hospital." Scully

said.

"You're just delaying the inevitable."

She sighed heavily, knowing he was right. "Thank you for

helping me with him."

"You're welcome."

"I'll probably need it again."

"You'll have it." Skinner drove in quiet worry.

It was 10:00 AM on a Tuesday.

"Get off me! Let go of me you son-of-a-bitches!"

Scully had found Mulder, a ragged, scruffy, thin but

otherwise fairly calm and lucid Mulder, early Friday

afternoon.

Turn your head away and back and the world changes.

Five days can blanket it in ice. The sun, in darkness.

"You bastards, fucking let go of me! LET ME THE FUCK GO!"

Scully felt Earth turn under Sol as it always had for

those days. That is, in between the Friday of Mulder's return

and Tuesday, her perception of how life was now going to go

stayed relatively the same.

But after his dash to freedom from her betrayal at the

clinic and each hour thereafter Mulder had sunk deeper into a

kind of upright unconsciousness. Even the animation behind his

familiarly haunted eyes had slipped away. It had become more

and more difficult to get him to speak. He refused food. Rest

was the one thing at which he did not balk. Where ever it was

he had been, he had certainly learned to appreciate sleep.

But there was no opening now into his hurt like she had found

that first day or so. The gaping wound had closed over and

his infected soul would surely kill him.

The sun seemed to stop in the sky when that good light in

Mulder's eyes died.

Where she was now, in this admittance room, was ice. Death-

like cold. They were not at Mercy Memorial. This was another

place. A hard, unfeeling place she believed. One that would not

treat him with tender compassion as he would be if under her

care nor even if he were in a normal hospital room surrounded by

normal sickness. Here they would look, frown, take notes, shake

their heads. Doctors would ask questions. Terribly painful

questions no one should have asked of them.

No one's friend, partner or lover should ever have to endure

this place and their kind of questions. Their kind of healing.

Yet they were here. She and Skinner together had brought him

here and here is where they would leave him. Scully had spoken

to the doctors, signed the papers and the thing was done.

Her awful deed. Her final kiss.

But Mulder's banishment from life would also be her punishment.

She would feel the mind chilling walls of his isolation room just

as deeply as he would. Of that she was certain.

"Paranoid schizophrenia with delusional psychosis". The

very fat admitting doctor with the bad comb-over had explained

to her. Resident Director. Two hundred, thirty five patients

and twenty-eight staff under him (including maintenance), did not

make for a career rich in free time. He was attentive but to the

point. Painfully so. A short interview with his newest and most

anxious guest and following events had now resulted in that - a

brass tacks diagnosis.

Mulder had remained calm and cooperative until it was suggested

he stay voluntarily for observation.

Shooting venomous daggers at Scully for she had, after all,

brought him to this place, he all but exploded from his seat

at the words "convalescence" and "therapy". Then had come violent

cursing, a run for the bolted, electronic locked double metal

doors leading to outside.

It was her second betrayal if him and he hadn't been eager to

volunteer.

Scully might have let him go.

If he hadn't begun pounding on the doors like a wild bull when

they refused to open. If he hadn't started screaming and threaten-

ing the orderly who tried to stop his assault on the institution's

front exit. If Mulder hadn't wadded up a good fist and broken the

orderlies's nose.

But another orderly had quickly appeared. And then another. And

soon four were trying to hold down the wildcat under them who bit,

punched, clawed and screamed.

She was explaining to Skinner the events of the past few hours

and the few minutes she'd been allowed alone with Mulder before

they came with more of their numbing drugs and white wool blankets

to cocoon him in their sterile cloak, the one stenciled with

invisible ink that said "sick".

"One minute he is calm, apparently rational,..."

She swallowed at the memory of Mulder being forced into

hospital issue white cotton pajamas. Four men, beefy and

perspiring had held him down while another jabbed a needle

into his boney hip. All five then fighting to get restraints

around his long limbs. Then, all the fight gone out of him,

Mulder lay in a colorless room on a standard, single roll away.

Nylon straps, the smell of fevered skin and hospital cleaner

stayed in her nostrils. It was a hated, familiar odor. Too often

in her sojourn as Mulder's partner and friend had she had to wash

out that stink of sanitized humanity from her hair and scrub it

from her skin. Too many needles had she seen slid beneath his flesh.

Too many IV needles snaked into veins and bandages wound to close

pink gashes and immobilize shattered bones.

No iodined flesh here, though. Naked soul however. Aching

soul. Something deeply poisoned by something else.

"...the next he's violent, terrified." She sighed and told

him the last bit. "Now he's withdrawn into himself and won't

even speak."

"Except to you."

"Yes, sir. Except to me. At least for a minute he did."

He had yelled and wept. Not spoken.

Skinner stood and found the nearest refuse bin, dumping his

untouched coffee. He paced one way, then the other before her.

Skinner was ex-military, she knew. His was a soldier's movement.

He was prowling for answers, for a formulation of action. Searching

for the enemy. For someone to make pay maybe.

But there was no smoking man to blame, no conspiracy of lies,

no funny lights in the sky to investigate. There was just a

fallible man who could tell them nothing. Who might never do so.

Scully watched Skinner give up his pacing and sit heavily

beside her as she nursed her own cup of boiling machine java.

Watery. Almost tasteless.

Mulder had screamed and screamed to be released.

/"You don't know what you're doing to me Scully." Crying. "You

have no idea, no idea. I can't believe this. You're killing me.

I'll die in here. You can't do this.." Pleading. "Please, please

don't leave me like this. Help me, Scully!.." Sobbing. "You don't

know, you don't know..."/

/"Know what, Mulder?" At his side, speaking calm words into his

ear when she didn't feel calm. Stroking his dry mussed-up hair when

she felt like tearing out her own. "Tell me, Mulder. Talk to me.

Help me to understand..." Attempting to soothe his pain while

wanting to commit murder upon those who had reduced his human and

beautiful life to this. "Please don't shut me out. Not now. Not

when you need me." Not when I need you. Not when I can't live

another day seeing you like this./

/A keening from his lips only. A mourning of self; a spirit

bemoaning fate and terror; helplessness. Hopelessness./

"Can I drive you home?"

Scully heard Skinner's simple question and nodded. He felt

powerless as well.

"He's going to be all right, sir." She looked at him. Would

she see the same conviction there? "He will. He has to be."

It was not hopeless. Not for Mulder. She wouldn't let it be.

RESIDENCE OF IAN MOSS AND GARY BELHULTZ:

Gary zipped up his black uniform pants, glancing at his partner

seated on the couch. Ian was frowning, an uncommon expression for

his usually good natured lover.

"What's eating you, Ian? You've been doing that all evening."

"What?" Ian asked absentmindedly, his face hidden behind a

magazine.

"That", Gary's dark haired head nodded in Ian's direction, "that

pensive "something's gotta be done" look. Something's up, I can

tell."

Ian thrust the magazine aside and lit a cigarette. The smoke

curled from his nose and haloed his blonde brush cut in a grey

haze. "Just a new patient - well, not new - he's been on my

floor for about a month. But he's not under my care."

Gary fed his leather belt through the pant loops and tucked his

shirt in. He preferred dressing his six-foot-two frame in the

doorway between bedroom and livingroom because the bedroom was all

but swallowed up by their massive king size bed and double dressers.

"And?" Gary knew Ian wanted to talk about it because he always lit

a smoke when he was worried about something or someone. Never

smoked otherwise.

"Poor bastard, that's the "and". Been through some serious shit

from what I can tell."

"If he's not your patient, how do you know?"

"I snooped."

Gary smiled to himself. That was Ian all over. Gary took care of

people in his way by being a cop. And as a care giver working in one

of the saddest forms of institutions ever erected by mankind - Mental -,

Ian cared for them in his.

"I mean," Ian went on, "he's all scarred up. Mind-fucked too, they

say. Schizo, delusional, paranoid, violent,...all the usual. They just

drug the shit out of him and let him sleep in his own drool all day.

Heard he nearly killed an orderly up on Six."

"And now that he's on Four?..." Gary slipped on his tie and pin, hat,

retrieved his badge off the nearest dresser and checked it for smudges.

Clipped it in place above his left breast pocket. Raked fingers through

his thinning crown.

"Well, he's so out of it, he's no threat anymore I guess."

"If he's on drugs, then he must be violent. Sounds to me like maybe

it's a good thing."

"That's just it,.." Ian frowned again, thinking and smoking.

Here it is, Gary thought. This is the part that's bugging him. Funny

thing was, Ian was usually right; about people.

"..I don't think he's violent. Not intentionally. I mean, I'm not

saying he isn't screwed up. But it seems to me like he's been dumped

there as someone's problem child and they can't be bothered dealing

with him anymore. I think he just needs a friend."

"Well, if he's on your floor, he's just found one." Gary had never

known anyone who could reach people like Ian. It was uncanny, that

ability of his just to talk softly, look at folks in the eye and know

what they were feeling. He could reach people and he seemed to do it

with no effort what-so-ever. Including himself. It was spooky. "You

should have been a psychiatrist."

"Too formal. I like to be on hand when the trouble is actually

happening. I like good, vigorous communication. Even if it's yelling.

Sometimes people need that. I think this guy needs to yell."

"Where'd this guy come from?"

"I don't know. Rumor is, though, he's ex-F.B.I.," smiling,

"cute, too."

"Really?" Gary raised eyebrows at that one. "Hmph." He slipped his

weapon into place. "I gotta go. Be home by ten." He meant A.M., not

P.M., he had the night shift for two more weeks. His working partner

hated them more than he did as it kept him away nights from his new

wife. "Cliff hates these."

Ian nodded, eyeing Gary seductively. "Well, night shift or day, I

just love to watch you snap on your shield and polish your gun."

Gary flushed. "Cut it out." He headed for the door.

"Hey. No kiss?"

Gary shrugged into his issue overcoat. "Are you kidding? If I get

within three feet of you, I won't get to work for hours."

"Wait." Ian butted out his smoke. "Do you think you can...'

"I know. Dig up some info on your new guy. I'll see what I can do.

Okay?"

"Okay. Thanks."

Gary stood waiting.

"What?"

"The guys name?"

Ian scribbled something on a scrap of paper, crumpled it and tossed

it to him. "Sorry."

Gary read the name. "You're kidding."

Ian shook his head.

Gary stuffed the paper into his shirt pocket. "Now, I really gotta

go. Later, Sweet."

Ian fell back into his frown as Gary left their apartment. He fixed

himself a coffee, letting his mind wander back to the first few days

of the new patient's life at Walburg.

It had been quite a stir.

WALBURG INSTITUTE, BOSTON, MINN.

"Jesus."

Ian heard Ramsey mutter. "Trouble?"

"Slightly." Ramsey replied. "Did you see the new guy? Crazy as a

mother-fucker. Been here three days. Already redecorated the wallpaper

in his ward with his dinner a few times. Goddamn mess. I hate the

new ones."

"Batting around delicious Walburg food is nothing new here. Even for

the staff." Ian quipped. It was true. Regular Hospital food was a fussy

palette's paradise by comparison.

Ramsey responded with a grin. He didn't like Ian too much, the kid's

touchy-feely way with the patients not suiting his taste, but the

fag had a sense of humor at least. "Yeah, but he's been doing it

projectile-style today. He sprayed that entire fucking room, I swear

to god. They're still moping up in there."

"He's throwing up? Well, maybe he's sick? Did anyone think to call

Munroe?" Munroe was the morning resident practitioner. Five to one P.M..

"What do you think?" Ramsey said.

Ian knew it was best to exit the conversation and returned to his

own duties. Ramsey was civil most of the time but quickly became

irritated at persistence. Unfortunately, he was also the resident

gossip. If there was fresh juice to be had, he was the squeeze.

Ian sought out a more promising if less verbal source in the name

of Janice. She was a sympathetic, overworked nurse with a divorce in

one hand and a sack of children in the other. As far as Ian was

concerned, getting a divorce from that abusive prick of a husband

had been the best decision of her life. She was a great nurse who

treated her patients with all the tenderness she also reserved for

her three children. And she heard things.

"What about this new patient?" Was all Ian had to say. Janice

glanced up from her nurses station and smiled at him the tiniest bit.

They understood one another, both genuinely liking their respective

jobs. "The dark haired one?" She scribbled in her reports as she spoke.

"Take a stab at the name."

Ian shrugged. "Come on."

""Fox"." She said, enjoying his reaction.

"Weird."

"Weird?" Her eyes widened a bit. "Oh, you haven't seen him yet.

Well, if the name fits..."

"I was more interested in why he's been puking up his food. Has

Munroe checked on him?"

"Yup. Must be stomach cramps or something. He got a Pepto and a

needle and he's sleeping like a baby."

"No flu'?"

"Nope."

"Must have been the sawdust in the meatloaf."

Janice stacked her papers and sighed. She could go home now. "I

feel sorry for him. You ought to take a peek in on him, Ian. Keep

an eye on this one this aft' for me, okay? Let me know?"

"Sure."

He did, around four in the afternoon; look in on the unconscious

patient that is.

"The new one" was by himself in the pink room. A color from

bygone days that had claimed it knew everything there was to know

about violent patients and how to soothe them. "Fox" was strapped

down and didn't twitch a muscle when Ian entered.

The first thing Ian noticed was the metal wristband that denoted

allergies to drugs.

No food allergies were indicated.

"Fox" - a weird name for parents to name a newborn because who

knows how a kid is going to turn out. But it did fit. He still

smelled slightly of vomit though he'd been cleaned. Ian ignored it.

He'd smelled worse things by far. All the putrid fluids the human

body can produce and in quantities few had the opportunity to see.

He smelled shampoo also. At least someone had taken the time to

wash and then comb his hair. But it was dull and dry. Walburg was

sadly lacking in humidifiers.

Ian crouched down to take a look at the man's face. A face could

tell a lot about a person, even a sleeping one. But here, Ian saw

nothing unusual. Only tiredness. Circles under the eyes in a thin

face the color of plaster. The guy must have been puking up most

everything, he could use a few pounds.

Suddenly the eyes opened and looked into Ian's with perfect

lucidity. Hazel irises with black cavern-pupils put there by drugs.

Ian inhaled sharply when the eyes blinked, closed and opened

again. No lucidness now. Just holes so deep it made him stagger

just to look at them. Filled as they were with old, long hurt that

reached it's grasp so far into the past he lost sight of it.

Ian searched for a word to describe what he was seeing and came

up empty. His own fingers reach out and touched that face.

It was unique. Angled jaw line joined cheekbone and brow together

in one ancient mold that effortlessly swept away all modern

examples of male beauty. A face borrowed from the Sistine Chapel

ceiling itself. From Solomon's Temple. From the Carpenter. From

something so beautiful and so innocent that it was painful to think

it being imprisoned here. But it was his eyes that took his breath

away. The old, old pain in them. Eyes accustomed to disappointment.

Eyes that knew all the worst of life and had come to expect nothing

else.

The pain itself belonged here. Here in this modern shrine of

wounded people. But not the eyes that contained it. They were as

out of place as a peacock in a slaughterhouse. As removed as

heaven was from hell.

Misery.

That was the word that had eluded Ian. It described perfectly

that first an only wordless communication.

Fox had shut his eyes and did not open them again.

Ian wasn't sure where the idea had come from or why it slipped

out. All he did know was that the words were pure truth.

"You don't belong here."

No more.

It was enough. She'd loved Fox too. At one time, for

him and Dana, she'd even hoped...

But that was history. Except history had a way of

repeating itself by resurfacing to wreak all it's

mistakes and anguish upon a new generation or just

the same old, exhausted one.

"Goddam it!" Margarete Scully caught herself in the

unusual act of swearing. It was not that she was so

old-fashioned she thought it un-lady like, it was just

not her. The words didn't roll off her tongue with the

right pizzaz. But the word vocalized her own feelings

pretty well.

Just when Dana was getting over it - him - just when

she was finally almost herself again and focused on

career, self and perhaps finding someone to share all

that smarts and beauty with -

- he had come back.

Gone and Dead.

Back and alive.

Ta-Dah.

Margrette switched it in her head: Fox, a friend, not

just "he".

Been back for days and, according to Dana with whom

she'd just gotten off the phone, in terrible trouble. Fox

was "sick". Dana had used the euphemism while speaking

stark words with a voice so small it threatened to vanish.

Margrette had heard his name as Dana applied it, not to

a missing, presumed dead partner, but a living, breathing

real person who was back and ready to launch her daughter

into untold new levels of grief and worry, however

unintentional.

Margrette had held onto the receiver so tightly, her

knuckles turned white, the blood pinched from her fingers.

Dana had said words and Margrette had heard them but she'd

also felt an overwhelming urge to scream into the phone: "LEAVE

HIM THERE!" when Dana mentioned the name and type of

institution where Fox was. But she didn't. She made

sympathetic mother noises, helpless against the Fate that

twisted them all cruelly in it's steel wires. "Oh, mom.

Poor Mulder." Her daughter had cried to her through AT&T.

Margrette didn't want to be supportive of this new horrible

twist in their lives. Lives that had returned to blessed

averageness. But she'd said all the right things and even

offered to come up to be with Dana. Dana had refused though

thanking her.

She let fly with every expletive she knew, tearing

the phone from the wall and flinging it against her kitchen

cupboards. A crash of unwashed plates from breakfast was it's

last act as the phone broke them apart in the soapy water.

Cried bitter, angry tears for her daughter. And,

despite her new found hatred that was not against Fox

Mulder but his untimely reappearance, still some of those

tears were shed for him.

Margarete Scully was not an ogre. She had never hated the

man as her son Bill had, who'd blamed Fox for every misfortune

that had befallen the Scully clan since little sis' head been

partnered with him. Margarete knew Dana made her own

choices and had always been willing to live with the

consequences. Always.

Her feelings about Dana's unusual workmate had run

quite the opposite of hatred actually, having grown to care

about him. Especially, as it had become quite plain to her

over the years that, other than Dana, no one else seemed to.

Fox had saved her daughter's life and she had never heard

Dana speak of him with anything other than respect even if

they were in complete disagreement over a case.

But then Fox had been kidnaped - "abducted" Dana had

often corrected.

That was years ago.

Mulder was dead. Eventually that's what they all had

thought.

Margarete had feared for the depth of her daughter's grief,

not for the tears Dana had shed but the lack of them. It was

as though Dana refused to accept it. Denied his disappearance.

Refused the possibility of his no longer being alive, hoping he

might come back.

Teena Mulder with her expensive lace hanky had stood

weeping silently by the memorial stone. A grim Walter Skinner,

silent and respectful, had placed one hand on Dana's shoulder

as the service ended and people in a fashion proper to the

showing of grief slowly migrated to their various vehicles.

For some reason, everyone had looked ashamed. Guilty for

not having sent Christmas cards or remembering to say hello

when they had passed the deceased in the hallway for all those

years.

Dana had shook Assistant Director Skinner's hand and

walked quickly to her own car. She had shed not a single

tear. Was a no-show at mom's home service of buffet

dinner and appropriate dainties.

At her dad's funeral, Dana had cried.

Not at Fox's.

Margarete had cried at the memorial service. For

lots of reasons. Mostly for Fox and for her daughter.

For a man who had brought something to her youngest's

eyes Margarete hadn't seen before. A newness, a sense of

purpose, a ethereal substance that somehow had made Dana

seem so much more than she had been.

Fear, too, had come with that new partnership. Fear and

danger and then grief like she herself had never experienced.

Yet, in the dawn of that pairing, a light had begun to

shine in her daughter's eyes that she couldn't explain.

That's what Margarete remembered. "He's intelligent, kind

of obsessive. Very cute but a little weird." Had been Dana's

summation of her new partner.

Especially in the time prior to Fox's disappearance, had

that light increased. Something had happened to them that

terrible summer. The summer she'd greeted Dana at her

front door and saw the tiny, broken capillaries still visible on

both cheekbones. Dana had looked tired and ill from her

experiences in the Antarctic but underneath a strength had

peered out of those blue, blue eyes that negated all the

pain.

A woman who was content. A happy woman.

Love had come that summer.

So Margarete's heart had cried too, when it was decided

that Fox was dead.

And when Fox had vanished, so, too, did the light.

Margarete had cried for the atrocities and pain that had

come to these two young people. Through no reason that

had been made known to her, terrible deeds had been

perpetrated against them by people Dana had yet to reveal.

For unrealized hopes and dreams she had cried. For a brief

universal moment of peace ripped away one cool September

night when the one was snatched and the other left to mourn

him. For nothing good left behind for either.

For all of that, Margarete's heart had also wept.

It had not been Fox's fault despite what Bill had said.

Any of it.

Now both had to pay all over again as God watched and did

nothing. Her own faith had been on shaky ground ever since

that funeral and each day after as she watched her daughter

sink into a melancholy that had only just begun to lift.

Fox. Dead. Her daughter. Left dying. It had not been his fault.

Fox was back. He was alive. It was not his fault.

It wasn't Dana's fault or her fault and that was the trouble. It

was never anyone's fault.

She supposed she should go and try to visit Fox in the

hospital, never mind that Dana had said not to. His mother

was dead. No other family to speak of anymore.

Dana's his family, we're his family...

The phone in the living room rang. Joyce calling her about

the Craft Fair or because her serving tray was still sitting

on her kitchen counter from the last card game. Joyce's

pecan tarts had been perfect as usual.

Simple, pleasant things that mocked Margarete's newest,

unwelcome source of sorrow.

Margarete balled her fists. Why does it have to be this way?!

"I know something about False Memory Syndrome.

This could very easily be that." Kurtzman flipped

through his appointment book.

Scully wasn't sure what to think about Kurtzman. He

had spent many years in his field. His office wall was

crowded with degrees. His shelves lined with books,

some which he himself had penned.

He would do all that was required of him as Chief

of Psychiatry at Walburg Institute. But would he take

Mulder under his wing? Would he look beyond the

clinical and find the suffering man inside? That's what

Scully wanted. It's what she'd hoped to find here.

Wasn't sure if she had in Kurtzman.

"You haven't even discussed what happened with him,

how can you be sure what it is yet?"

"From what you've told me regarding his memories

about his sister, it's in the report you provided. His history

of mental and emotional disturbances is all right there. Not

a year prior to his disappearance, he was admitted for psychiatric

observation upon claiming the ability to see a monster that

"hides in the light". You made your own statement in that report

regarding his ordeal as a hostage. He was in a confined situation

- beaten during the incident if I remember correctly. He claimed

that only he and certain individuals already dead possessed the

ability to see the monster. His direct superior added a statement

that included what he himself witnessed of Fox Mulder's actions.

Another Illinois field agent stated that his behavior had been

erratic."

"I also submitted an addendum to that report stating my belief

that Agent Mulder was in fact sound of mind and that I myself was

later able to substantiate certain aspects of his claims."

Kurtzman stopped and looked at the woman sitting across from

him. This lady was, also, a doctor, albeit a pathologist. She had

seventeen years under her belt working in a variety of positions as

an agent of the F.B.I.. This new patient was her former partner and

close friend.

Kurtzman wanted to be clear with her.

"Medical aspects, yes, you did. Your report from the hospital room,

however, was vague. You saw a "large, dark form"."

She stared back. Looked away.

"I will do my best with him, Doctor Scully. But I can make no

predictions about how he will respond to treatment."

"I know." There was no choice anyway. It was Kurtzman or nobody.

Kurtzman adjusted his frameless glasses. "The report stated

his memories about his sister's disappearance changed post

hypno-regression therapy under Doctor Verber and that later

he began to doubt his own recollections about what happened

that night. He blamed himself for it, is that correct?" He looked

at her.

Scully nodded. Kurtzman seemed to want to review the facts

with her. Scully knew what that thick folder said. The picture

it painted of a highly intelligent but disturbed man who believed

in the paranormal and who blamed aliens for his sisters abduction

(and now his own as well). Who was so ridden with guilt over his own

perceived inability to act that he could only cope by finding some

kind, any kind, of explanation. Even a supernatural one instead of

the simplest one; that his sister had been taken by a pedophile and

lay in an undiscovered shallow grave to this very day.

Scully knew that's what others saw in Mulder.

She had five more minutes with Kurtzman. Not enough time

to explain how that report was wrong. Not enough time to

convince him with reasonable words that she also had

experienced things and seen things no one else on earth

had. No time. No proof either.

Yet, if Mulder was to come back to her, she had to let Kurtzman

try and help Mulder. She had to trust him.

"Over the years there were other periods of obsessions."

Kurtzman was saying. "There's a whole cauldron of reasons to

suspect he's imprinting or rather painting a picture of what

happened to him instead of actually remembering the facts

for reasons that should become clear, not least of which

would be that it was a frightening, painful and a prolonged

incarceration."

Kurtzman was trying to be sympathetic and show her he was

not an unfeeling guy.

"And from what I've read of his psychological profile and

periodic mandated therapy during his F.B.I. years, Mulder

exhibits Chronic Victim tendencies. He's a lonely individual?"

Scully had to nod.

"And he made a lifetime work out of studying abduction

victims, seeking out proof of the existence of Extraterrestrial's,

trials and UFO's...well,..it's just an educated guess at this

juncture, but I don't believe he's showing us anything new."

She couldn't help herself. "So you're conclusion is that

he's faking all of this? Is that the basis upon which you'll

treat him? The polygraph showed no evidence of deceit or

intent to deception."

"I am not minimizing his symptoms or that he is in a disturbed

state of mind. However, all a polygraph proves is that he believes

what he's telling us."

"He has scars, Doctor Kurtzman, from non-self-inflicted wounds,

some that might have been fatal had someone - I don't know who -

not provided medical aid."

"I didn't say he wasn't held captive, I didn't say he hasn't

gone through something horrific. But I think what he believes

happened and what actually happened are two different things.

With the amnesia he's suffering, a somewhat selective amnesia,

that's not a big surprise."

Kurtzman was wrong. The reports were wrong. She had nothing

to show him that Mulder was not lying or imprinting or selectively

deleting aspects of his eight year absence because they didn't

fit the abduction claim. IF he was, it was because they were too

painful for him, not because they would expose his abduction

claim as false.

Scully wanted to yell: We don't know ANYTHING!

If she were in Kurtzman's shoes, she'd be mouthing the same stuff

he was. She'd be placating and polite but firm in her assertations

that Mulder was mentally ill and that what he said should not be taken

at face value. Her eyebrows would be twitching too at the friend of

Mulder sitting across the desk attempting to convince the doc

that the man brought in for treatment for mental disturbance was

not actually crazy.

She wanted to laugh. She wanted to bend over and laugh at

the top of her lungs. He might not have her committed if she did,

but he would wonder. Kurtzman would certainly wonder.

"His sister was abducted at eight years of age. In the

investigation, was the possibility ever explored that-"

"-Mulder killed her? Yes. And no evidence what-so-ever

was found to substantiate it. He was, in fact, so traumatized

he was catatonic for four days and suffered complete amnesia

about the events of that night for over two decades."

"Catatonic? Amnesia? I see..."

Scully flushed. She'd said those things to support Mulder's

complete innocence in the disappearance of his sister, Samantha.

Now even she had to concede the possibility at least...-No! "Mulder

didn't kill his sister." She knew him too well. Random, unprovoked,

violent act? Not Mulder.

But Kurtzman had enough crap in that fucking file to write another

book with Mulder as the main character.

"But he did live with the guilt for more than twenty years.

Maybe he simply made up his abduction - I'm sorry - the reasons

behind his abduction to allay his guilt. Maybe he just couldn't

live with it any longer. There's no doubt he was kidnaped and that

he's suffered a great deal, but perhaps he feels some sort of atonement

now. Perhaps in his mind justice has been satisfied. I'm not saying that

is so however."

Reasonable. Logical. Made sense.

Wrong.

If Mulder had been walking the edge of some kind of emotional

knife prior to his disappearance, he had showed no sign of it. Which

meant nothing, really. She had seen no sign, but they'd both been

swamped with caseloads and paperwork and she'd been on loan to

Quantico in between. They'd seen little of each other since

Antarctica. Could he have murdered Samantha? She refused to believe

it. Did Mulder hate himself? Very possibly. Self esteem had never

been his watch-word.

None of it, however, answered the question about where he'd

been and with who.

Or what.

"How will you treat him?" Scully asked, leading away from

the conversation that was disturbing her more than she liked

to admit. She didn't know what happened to Mulder. No one

did. But he was not insane (at least, he never used to be),

and he was not lost.

She just knew.

She had the DNA evidence, whatever it really meant. Unidentified

genetic string that had no business being there. /"Fifth and sixth

Base Pair. That is, by definition, extraterrestrial."/

"Meds, and a group that meets four times each week. Each

patient has been through similar traumas and I've found it

has helped them to open up. It's not always easy. Most are

long term. I also give private therapy but that's not covered

under his insurance plan..."

Kurtzman left it open for her to decide which course for Mulder.

She didn't have to choose. There was no money for private

counseling. "The group will be fine. I've provided both Bryant

and Munroe copies of Mulder's medical report and recent psychological

work up." Carefully edited copies. What would any of these professionals

think of her discovery of Mulder's out-of-this-world DNA? "If you

have any questions or need anything from me or if he asks to see

me,...please call me right away."

"Of course."

"I'm going back tomorrow afternoon. I have to see him once

more before I head back to Washington."

Skinner set his jaw at the other end of the phone line. He was

back in Washington and trying to be understanding about his

former doctor/agent's misplaced self-blame.

"You had to do it, Scully. Mulder was on the proverbial edge.

He might have done anything."

"Well, now he's over the edge if I understand Kurtzman's meaning.

They've got him on Thorazine and two or three other drugs. They

want to start him right away on group therapy with Bryant because they

think the sooner, the better. I suppose I should be delighted with how

much good I've done him." Biting sarcasm. "Everything's just peachy."

"What could you have done? Kept him warm and fed? Lock him

in his room at night? Be afraid every minute you're away that you

might come home and find his brains all over your kitchen floor?"

Mulder was insane.

"Gee, don't hold back or anything, Skinner, tell me what you

actually think."

Director Skinner strode around his bigger, more expensively

decorated office. Leather chairs, marble floors, oak desks...the

place was a monument to F.B.I. Old Horses. "I think you should

go visit Mulder, see that he's being taken care of and then take

the first flight back to Washington and your own life."

Mulder was now a ward of Walburg Mental Institute. He would

be in Walburg for a long time. Walburg was in Boston.

It was the best thing for him. It was the best for all concerned.

Skinner was certain it was best for Scully.

He heard Scully sigh at the other end of the too distant conversation.

She sounded defeated and angry. "Thank you for helping

me get him there." At least she also sounded resigned to facts.

Skinner knew Scully had exhausted every last penny of the Mulder's

personal family money to set Mulder up for a year of intense treatment

and therapy at Walburg. He wondered if it would be enough.

"Don't forget. I'm always here if you need anything." Scully would

be returning to Quantico and their paths would again diverge.

"Thanks. That means a lot." Sounding like she meant it, she

hung up.

Skinner replaced the receiver. Nothing had been accomplished

by his call to her except antagonism. Pouring himself his eighth

cup of coffee of the day, he tried to concentrate on work. After

twenty minutes of turning pages of the report in front of him

and retaining not one word of it he gave up and placed a call to

Dulles, arranging a flight out for that afternoon.

It was always best to do these things in person.

"I'm here to see Fox Mulder. I was told Doctor Bryant would clear

my visit." Scully announced to the Receiving Desk nurse who looked

annoyed at the "not-visiting-hours" visitor. "Just a moment." Nurse

pressed a button on her multi-functional phone. "A Ms. Scully to see

Patient Mulder. You cleared this, she says."

After gathering a reply in the positive, Scully was soon stepping

into a private visiting room where Mulder was already waiting.

Bryant had him brought down as soon as he heard she was waiting.

A uniformed Orderly locked the door behind her.

Scully cautiously without being too obvious about it took stock

of Mulder. He'd only been in the place four days. She'd last seen

him two days previous.

He looked normal. Tired. Hair combed and face shaved though.

Hospital issue boring whites rumpled. With the exception that he

didn't look at her he seemed usual.

"Hi Mulder." Start simply. Don't ask how he is. Don't get excited.

Don't judge. Don't find fault, don't place blame, don't try to

figure it all out. That's what Bryant had advised. It was standard

stuff. She'd read it all in a pamphlet he'd given her. She'd read

through it before coming today. She wouldn't hurt him.

"Hey." He answered, looking at her. Not a smile but not tight-

lipped either.

She sat opposite his slump. Stiff-backed, she folded her coat neat

and square in her lap. "I guess,...I just wanted to see you before

I left."

He nodded matter-of-factly. "Standard goodbye visit." He commented.

Scully flushed. Swallowed. Remained calm. It was so hard. "I didn't

know what else to do, Mulder. You...were scary." Don't blame. Don't

hurt. "This is hard for me too."

"Of course. I frightened you. Well, I'm pretty fucking scared too."

He raked his hair with his left hand. His right wrist was encased in

plaster of Paris and remained resting on his knee. "I guess you might

say frightened, petrified, terrified, shaking in my Nut-House slippers.

Do you sense a pattern emerging here, Doctor Scully?" He was being

defensive. Combative. Bryant said he would be. It was expected. It was

on page twenty-three.

/"Mulder might be antagonistic, huh?" She'd asked Bryant

ironically. "Well, I'll keep that in mind."/

"Mulder, look, I'm going to be flying here every second weekend

because I want this to work. This isn't a punishment. We're trying to

help you..."

"You can help me by getting me out of here right now. Today." He

stared at her and for a second or two he looked just like Agent Fox

Mulder of the F.B.I. and not a proclaimed abductee who had two days

before tried to kill another man and then cripple his own arm by

slamming it again and again into a locked, metal door.

"I can't. No matter how much you hate me for this, I can't. I won't

let you destroy yourself." Fuck the Manual. "I won't let you hate

yourself for something you couldn't prevent or change or...escape

from."

Mulder didn't answer and, figuring the conversation was done, Scully

rose. Slipping her arms through the coat sleeves, she gathered her good

intentions and reached down to take her briefcase.

Mulder had his face buried in both hands, the right one awkwardly

because of the cast. His shoulders shook. His whole body shook.

God, she wanted to run away from this; the whole responsibility of it.

If she didn't love him, she would have.

But instead she squatted before his sharp knees, he was still so thin,

taking his hands in hers. "I wish I could make this better. I wish I

could make it all go away, everything, these last eight years, all of

it." His face screwed up tight from the force of his spilling pain, it

was always so hard to watch him cry. She had never gotten used to it.

"Please don't leave Scully."

Shit. That was the last thing she wanted to hear. It was the hardest

request to refuse. "I have to Mulder. You know I have to. I have a job,

I can't ignore it forever." And there are doctors bills to pay.

"Please don't leave me in here. Bars on the windows, fucking padding

on the walls of my "room". I'm wearing white pajamas for Christ's sake.

I sleep on a..a..m-mat!"

Humiliating. "That's only temporary, Mulder. When you stop being a

danger to yourself and others they'll move you to a regular ward. You

almost killed that man - you choked him."

"Because I knew I was being locked in."

"Would you have killed him?"

He stared at her. "To get out? Yes."

"That's why there are bars on your windows and padding on your

walls. Look at your wrist, Mulder."

He sighed deeply. Bone-weary resignation. "I didn't ask for much,

Scully. Just some time. That's all I wanted. It's what I need. I'm

forty-five years old."

Forty-five and being fitted for a straight-jacket. Who wouldn't be

terrified? "I wish it could be different-" Mulder needed a controlled

environment, where he could feel safe.

"-Scully. Don't you get it?" The tears came slow and silent and

without any secondary signs of distress. He was calm but not okay.

"I'll die in here."

"No, you won't." It was her doctor's voice. Assured, rational.

Controlled, calm and convincing. Her best trick whenever Mulder

had appeared to be teetering on the edge of too far "over there".

He laughed but not because he thought it funny. It was a "You

know dick-all" laugh. "Yes, I will."

Scully looked at the scuffed, linoleum floor, yellow from years of

old wax, the grainy walls were in need of painting. She'd done the

best she could. The last of his assets had been sold. His things which

she had kept in storage all those years, his car, his bank accounts.

The Mulder summer house on Rode Island - enough to pay for one year's

worth of intense psychological and medicinal therapy at Walburg. She

prayed to God it was enough.

I'll come visit every day, she had wanted to say but it would have

been a self-comforting lie. Every second weekend was about all she

would be able to manage. As long as work didn't interfere.

"Some of these injuries could have been self-inflicted." Doctor

Bryant had said after reading the edited information she'd provided,

leaving out the blood work-up and what they suspected of his DNA.

Self-inflicted. That had occurred to her of course. It was one of

a whole range of possibilities she'd thought of. One in particular

she didn't like to think about was that Mulder had made no attempt to

contact her or anyone for the very reason that he hadn't wanted to.

That he'd been kidnaped - abducted, taken, whatever - was clear.

But by who was not. And if it had been by your average human, earth-

bound psycho, it was possible that somewhere along the way Mulder

had escaped and then just not come home. He might really have

gone crazy after that, some of the cuttings and the wounds done by

his own hand. The lack of communication with hearth and home perhaps

because of fear or shame. When one takes up a knife and separates

one's own skin and watches as one's own blood flows - well, a

difficult thing for anyone to own up to.

But people get lonely, hungry, cold and tired. So eventually, he'd

come home and guess what? Abduction. Aliens did this to me, Scully,

I was taken away. I've been held captive on another planet for eight

years. They're the ones who cut me.

Of course these things had occurred to her. She'd rejected them.

Some of the wounds had been deep and impossible for him to have

done himself. Especially the right shoulder wound. Very deep. Arteries

had been severed, a fatal wound that would have pumped blood out

in quarts. Whoever had delivered that blow had wanted to see him

die. Yet Mulder was here and still breathing so help must have

gotten to him somehow.

Had he caused the other injuries though?

Believing Mulder had done all this to himself would mean eight

years of her own life had been kidnaped as well. She'd hung on,

thinking as they all had that he had been taken and kept away

against his will. So she'd waited and hoped for most of those years.

Tough but she'd done it.

Believe that he had been taken, escaped and then stayed away

willingly would mean those years had been wasted on a falsehood.

That was so much worse.

Scully had rejected Bryant's words. For many reasons. Some because

she wanted to believe Mulder was telling the truth. Others, known

only to her.

Mulder was home. Maybe he was fighting for life. Whatever the

truth was they would find out or they wouldn't.

He had good doctors. Munroe, general practitioner. Bryant,

therapist. Kurtzman, shrink.

The room was chilly. Walburg reminded her of herself and of Mulder.

Worn out, tired but still functioning. She would hold onto that.

He was mute, beyond hearing. Trying to scare her?, she wondered.

Manipulate her into removing him from this place and taking him

home where he just might lose himself one day and air-condition his

skull with a bullet.

She rose. "Mulder. Take your meds, go to your therapy, talk to

Bryant and Kurtzman. I'll see you in two weeks. You are not going

to die."

Scully knocked on the secured door. The orderly appeared and let

her out, relocking the door by turning a key from his collection on a

ring the size of a hula-hoop. Scully chanced a look back at Mulder

through the wired-meshed window.

Mulder was sitting very still, crying. He looked skinny and white and

sick but he was not shaking anymore.

Mulder was returned to his room and he went immediately to the tiny,

thick-glass window, his only view of outside. The forbidden world.

He wanted to see her.

She was so tiny against the enormous trees that hadn't yet shed

their leaves. A faint dusting of snow softened the late September

landscape. The beauty of the grounds and the parking lot hid the

ugliness of inside.

Her coat fell around her knees, touching her, tickling his senses.

Her soft, pretty hair the color of autumn leaves moved under the

fingers of the wind.

Someone was walking up to her. A man. She turned and walked

over to meet him. Someone she knew.

Mulder squinted. They stood by her car. She spoke to him. They

briefly embraced.

Mulder knew the man too. He stepped back from the window and

curled himself up on the thin mattress, shaking in terror.

When the next shift rotations went into effect, Ian made sure

his and Janice's start-time/quit-time overlapped. It meant he

would see that much less of Gary for the next two months but he

had the feeling it was important that he be there to keep an eye

on Fox during the evenings.

Janice's concern over the troublesome patient had

grown and she fed that concern to Ian through looks

and the occasional crucial conversations they managed

to grab whenever their coffee breaks coincided.

"He hardly eats and throws up most of it. Munroe

just keeps feeding him antacids and gravol. I think

he prefers ordering the gravol 'cause it slows Fox

down."

"What's he been doing?"

"Fox? Nothing. I mean, no fights or anything, it's

just the throwing up and hysterics when anyone touches

him. Problem is, to clean him up, he has to be touched,

y'know? To give a shot, even meds...but those meds

keep him pretty out of it most of the time."

"Why the hell hasn't Munroe ordered some Upper GI's

or something on him to figure out what the hell is wrong?"

"He did and you should have seen that battle. They had to

pump the barium shit in through a tube. He had to be tied down

in each position for the slides. It took forever."

Ian could picture it. Fox was sick and weak but he was a

fighter. "Did they find out anything though?"

"Oh, yeah, he has a hiatus hernia. Nothing major, millions

of people have them and it accounts for the vomiting I

guess..."

"Fucking Munroe is a prick. Maybe Fox really can't stomach

the food. Jesus, he might have allergies to preservatives or

something."

"Hmm, anyway, our little Fox has tricks." Janice raised one

eyebrow and waited.

"Tricks?"

"He has a stash."

"What?"

"A stash of goodies. Food. Someone's been sneaking him in

sweets. Chocolate mostly. And nougat. Barb brought me a whole

wad of wrappers he'd shoved in the bedsprings."

"Caffeine. Sugar. Stimulants. Unhealthy shit. Who'd be doing

that? He only ever gets one visitor and she'd never,..she's a

doctor or something so no way in hell. One of the staff?"

"I dunno." Janice shrugged. "And nobody knows where the hell

he's hiding it. They keep tossing the wards."

"Is he at least eating his oatmeal?"

"Mnn-hum. That and soup. Whenever they make him eat anything

else, either funnel or pump, he barfs!"

"Poor son of a bitch. No wonder he keeps trying to run." Every

few days or so, one staff member or another would catch Fox

trying to pick the lock of the ward doors or his room (if he was

confined in solitary), or trying to smash through the wire-

meshed bathroom windows. No one knew how he was managing

to sneak around unnoticed. Ian knew. The staff didn't watch the

patients nearly so closely as they claimed to. Many hated the work

and put out the minimum. Besides Fox had been FBI, hadn't he? He'd

probably learned to be sneaky. F.B.I.'d wrote the book on Sneaky.

"Well it's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to

live here." Janice quipped and rose from her seat in the small

cafeteria.

"Wait. When are you off? Bring me up to date for today."

"Tell you on the way."

After he dutifully had consumed his stew (he did sometimes

cooperate. The dead were experts on knowing when to give in),

it was time for meds and he palmed them. This time it worked.

He could spend the evening looking at and actually seeing the

white layer of frost that had come that morning and stayed. It made

the life outside look strangely alive while stilling it.

Unlike him, beautiful. Like him, dead. He, living or not, could still

appreciate pretty things.

"Hey, Mulder." A voice dropped from above him and, along with it,

something fell in his lap. He was cross-legged in the corner of the

main hall. A sitting area where patients came to sit or watch T.V..

The window sill was just low enough to afford a view of outside

if he craned his neck.

He fingered the Butterfinger as Ross, a frequent bearer of such

gifts, walked quickly away.

Alms.

It was as much association with a corpse as anyone would want, he

supposed. As before he didn't question the gift and tucked it under

his shirt. Such secret repasts hurt less than the kitchen's offerings

and tasted better besides.

Joseph, a fellow patient, resented the little favors Fox was receiving

from the enemy and made it his business - not to snitch because

snitching to the staff was like one chicken complaining about another

chicken to the weasel - but to make Fox's life miserable at every

opportunity.

Joseph choose his left-over grape juice this time and pitched the

half-full plastic cup at Fox's head. It hurt, a little, but the mess

was everywhere and soon Ross was back and escorting him to the showers

to clean up while someone went to lecture Joseph about playing nice.

Eyes at his back, Fox washed up and was given clean pajamas, which

was all he was ever allowed to wear. His repeated escape attempts

had behooved the staff to forbid him anything resembling street wear.

Pajamas were noticeable on the outside.

It didn't stop him from trying though.

That night he got as far as the back fence. He had managed

to steal a small pair of sewing scissors from a new and not

too bright nursing student, picking the locks on three sets of

doors including the chains on the rarely used rear exit before

the dozing night watchman noticed him on the monitors and

punched the claxon.

"It's the norm for him." Ramsey was referring to the patient

who'd been dragged away to the infirmary. Besides his cast,

Fox had a new bandage on his hand and Ramsey had heard that

an orderly, Ross, was sporting butterflies on his temple, though

the injury was minor. Two staff now tagged courtesy of their most

destructive patient.

"Oh. He always like that?" The student asked, a new

nursing assistant. It was her first week. She was in

the Cage with Ramsey, looking over the front desk.

"Mostly." Fox had tried to escape the night before

and been caught, so rebelliously had refused his meds

that morning. It was needle time. And tube time too

because the recalcitrant patient had also refused his

breakfast.

"I wish they'd just give him everything through a needle.

His screaming just gets all the others going. What are you

looking for?"

"My scissors. I heard he used to be F.B.I., maybe it got to

be too tough. I wonder what happened."

"Who cares what happened to a suit. Rich dad - some

government cheese. Old money. Just try working in a place

like this for twenty years. This is tough." To Ramsey, rich

folks in expensive suits were the enemy. "As far as I'm

concerned, he belongs right here in Club Fucked."

The little student nurse stole a peek into the infirmary.

The dark haired patient was strapped down and though he was

bucking like a bronco at his restraints, the drugs were already

taking him down.

"Maybe he just doesn't like the rules."

Ian crouched down beside the table where Fox was, once again,

drugged with a gallon of Thorazine. They'd shot him full of enough

of the shit, Ian figured, to fell an elephant. It was only Fox's

second month.

He studied the man and wondered. Fox was curled up his side,

no need for straps when muscles were sludge and wouldn't obey. His

eyes were open but didn't look at Ian at all. Looked passed him

or through him, drugs blurring reality into something manageable.

Ian spoke softly. He didn't want to startle him or alert any

curious staff who might be wandering passed Isolation's slightly

ajar door.

"I don't know what all hell you've been through to bring you

here, but we've got to get you better."

Ian touched the man's face. It was cool and pale. The drug.

"I see that lady who comes to visit, the one you refuse to

speak to. I think she cares and I think she wants you to

come home." Ian fingered the man's dry, wispy hair. It looked

like someone had cut it with a weed-eater. The staff barber

must have had an off day.

Whether his gesture of kindness made any impact, Ian couldn't

tell. Fox's eyes remained empty. "If I wasn't so insanely crazy

about Gary, I'd go for you myself, you seem about my type. They

say you're here because you're insane. Violent too. I don't know

why but I don't believe that. There's just something about you."

He withdrew his hand, grabbing a blanket bunched around Fox's

feet. "I think you need to get better, Fox, and go home. She's

been here every two weeks like clockwork. She must care about you

a lot to keep coming."

Ian stood and checked him over, being careful of Fox's thin wrist

where the cast used to be and where was now a loose square of

gauze. The flesh of that hand was pebbled and flaky. Arranging the

blanket around the staring mummy, he said "At least think about it."


	2. Chapter 2

TITLE: "FOCUS" (Sequel to "PhaHks")- Part 2/4.

AUTHOR: GeeLady (GenieVB)

RATING: NC-17. MT/ScSkR/MScR/MOR/MAJOR ANGST!, language,

violence, sexually explicit scenes, Slash-violent rape, adult situations.

SPOILERS: "PhaHks" by GeeLady (GenieVB). Various X-Files

episodes.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Someone was talking. If it was to him, it wasn't loud enough

for him to hear through the demons so it was ignored.

They'd bandaged his hand today (the scissors had turned traitor

and jabbed back at him) and would force solids down his gullet

later, but because he was dead to them, they could not know

that it hurt to eat.

He looked alive.

Very well.

But upon his wakening, that day at the roadside where the

moon had hung in the sky and the breeze blew, had come his

second death.

Had he known that it had been a false moon, painted stars

and cardboard trees...

He'd come to death and walked like a deadman; no where in

particular but, where ever that was, yet un-alive.

Presently: bars, drugs, straps.

The lake of fire had burned in her eyes at his pronounced

state.

He was made of sand, his insides molten, is heart stretched

as tight and thin as a fiber of glass.

She was scared of him. She had every right. He'd seen his

reflection in her fear that morning. The bath water had rinsed

his skin but a man was more on the inside than the outside and if

soap and a scrub brush were instruments of faith or healing, they

had failed him. He had not been cleansed.

The taint was simply easier to see now.

Her mirror had exposed him; unreceptive.

She tried to save him the next day again, with food and soft

cushions. She'd even laundered his clothing. He knew it had been

a hopeless attempt but he wanted to please her at least and had

eaten the food and answered the questions.

And the next ones and the next. Salvation through saliva.

Finally gotten angry and tired. Sick of all of it when they

decided that doctors could help him, change what happened, cure

the rot, flight him with wings to a resurrection.

Virgins could not know what it was like to have a demon eat

your soul in teeny bits.

They would never know what it is to be released only to find

that you ought to have stayed in Hell because at least there

you fit in.

He'd walked on home soil, smelled the air, saw her beauty

and unmarred heart. Unobtainable things now. Things to be

admired but never reached for. Perfections with which he had

no connection. To understand that had freed him.

With that truth his soul had shrunk to the size of a molecule,

exited his flesh and taken up residence elsewhere.

If still they wanted to believe he was undead and was not

decomposing before them...

...So be it.

But speak? Even to fool himself or them into believing that he

was alive and clean enough to touch? That was out of the question.

A person could make a study of crazy and not be destroyed

as long as you were on the right side of the mirror. But step

out and look back and you might see what they saw...

Talk about being driven insane.

Liberating in a way, being dead. At least expectations were

minimal.

Hands touched him. Gently. A tease. It was torture to be

reminded of nice things and feelings but he was too weak

to slap it away or even get mad.

It hurt to be tempted to swing that way and allow the

maybe in again. He'd given up on maybe.

Dead people don't hope for anything.

The hand kept it's touching and the voice kept up it's

noises to drive him mad. If both became tainted with him,

he couldn't help it.

Don't they know I can drain life?

"You're wasting your time." He wanted to tell Nice Voice.

His lips moved but he wasn't sure if any words escaped.

Nice Voice spoke through the years of other deafening

screams: "What? What, Fox?"

But Fox wanted to sleep and forget there was such as

thing as a world where worthy words could be found or any

truth other than what the Thorazine daily preached.

The next day, Fox was up and walking around the ward with

some of the other patients.

This was where he, they all, came to pass the time in between

meals (where it was announced over the loudspeaker for

those enough in the here and now to comprehend and obey. Those

who were not were escorted), meds (where one waited in line

at the dispensing window), washroom privileges (at specific times

and only three patients allowed at a time with two escorts), and

to just wait out the day until bedtime and glorious unconsciousness.

Fox didn't mind the waiting times so much. None of the patients

bothered him and he didn't bother them.

"Cards?" Joseph (suicidal schizophrenic) was asking him, the

grape-juice toss from two days previous forgotten. Joseph loved

card playing. Thin, gray haired, he'd been in one institution

after another since he was thirty. He also hated everyone but

was a crackerjack card player as long as you didn't point out

that he was cheating. Fox didn't mind and it helped pass the

day as well as anything else.

Bradley (delusional psychotic "with violent acting out"), on the

other hand, like to disrupt the peace and harmony as often as

possible. He took great pleasure in producing shock effect by

masturbating in the corridors, especially when there were visiting

doctors or, better yet, new nurses.

Martin (manic depressive), a motor mouth who bitched and moaned

like a politician when he was on a "high", about his hemorrhoids

in particular, and who sat in the corner and sulked a lot when

he was on a "low".

Not everyone moved about with free will. Thomas had been in a

terrible MVA, and had left a respectable portion of his brain on

the shoulder of Highway 23. How he had survived was anyone's guess

and now he had a plate in his head, was blind in one eye and

tended to ignore everything that went on to his left. He talked

but only in gibberish and needed help with everything, from

defecating to eating. He spent the majority of his days wandering

around the ward, making right turns.

Fox (whom few of the staff liked and who didn't like them, who

spent much of his day sleeping or sitting and staring through the

bars of the huge ward windows, who fought and screamed at meal

and med times, whom the staff liked nothing on him better than

restraints, needles and feeding tubes) sat and played cards with

Joseph while Martin complained in a normal voice - not yelling yet,

it was too soon after his morning pills - about his unique physical

state.

"Goddamn cold floors are bad for my health. Don't you know this

floor is poison.?!" He snarled to a passing nurse who sped up his pace,

the sooner to get out of earshot. "The linoleum. I know, I've been

in lotsa places before this, there's deadly chemicals in the wax. Makes

my hemorrhoids bleed. They're like sausages now, god dammit." He shook

his fist after the retreating representation of good health.

The place suffered from things common to public institutions, it was

overcrowded, understaffed and the heating went out on a regular basis.

In the enclosed environment, germs happily multiplied and mutated.

Nearing the end of the week two orderlies, three nurses and four

patients were all down with influenza.

"They moved Mulder to the infirmary." Janice informed Ian as soon as

he arrived for his Thursday afternoon shift.

"Flu'?" Ian asked. Fox had been unusually docile. Nothing like an

illness to sap the fight from a person.

"Yeah. He's got it really bad though. Woke up this morning, took a

couple of steps and puked up all that Ensure they'd pumped into him

the night before."

Nothing unusual. "That makes five sick."

"Sick-ER." She said, teasing. Ian smiled for her because she was

his best source of information on what happened in the place and

especially things regarding Fox, but it wasn't funny really.

He looked in on Fox later when all but one nurse went for lunch.

Fox looked like absolute shit. Ian touched his forehead, he was as

hot as a stove element, flushed from fever and the oxygen mask on

his face told the rest of the tale.

"Pneumonia huh? How did you manage that so fast?"

Later, Ian heard that his doctor friend, Scully, had phoned for

for her tri-weekly update on Fox's therapy and general state of

health. When she heard he was down with pneumonia and flu, she'd

told Munroe she was flying out though it was not yet Saturday. Ian

had smiled at the grumpy face Munroe wore after that phone

conversation. The Doc' didn't like questions, especially interfering

questions from another doctor and even less when that other doctor

was a woman.

"Bitch." Janice had heard the Doctor's expletive and like a good

little snitch told Ian all she knew about it.

Ian was liking this doctor Scully more and more. Anyone who

managed to get under Munroe's thick skin was someone he wanted

to meet and made a point of finding out when this Scully would arrive.

The place was as crowded and dingy as she remembered.

The fellas weren't. Langley had chopped his hair to a

brush cut and wore clothing that was actually passable.

Byers was married, had a five year old son and had cut

his dinner with the family short to come and meet with

them. Frohike had suffered a massive coronary three years

previously and was attending the meeting via his comfy

retirement condo across town.

"Could something like this have been manufactured?"

Scully corrected herself. "That sounds crazy." "Assembled?

I understand they've completed the genetic code for a

salamander and certain species of fish." She'd come seeking

their input on the impossible condition of Mulder's genetic

invader.

By habit, Byers answered first. "My work with the Justice

Department allows me discreet access to all current medical

advancements. But we know there has been and still is work

being done that is kept from the common people. The salamander

is common knowledge. They've also had limited success with

warm blooded creatures, mice, bats..."

Langley shook his head. "But what they've accomplished

is nothing but fitting Flange A into Slot A, square peg in the

square hole. Genetic cross-word puzzling."

"SCULLY'S TALKING ABOUT THE BUILDING OF DNA. MANU-

FACTURING IT. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A PROCESS OF

CREATION. IF IT'S BEING DONE, NO ONE I KNOW KNOWS

ABOUT IT." Frohike's voice over the computer voice line.

"Nobody but the CIA." Langly corrected.

"The creation of DNA," Byers added, "would elevate humans

to gods."

"I'm not sure humanity's ready for that, look what they've done

with television." Scully said. "If they've done it, if that's what this is,

I can only think of one reason for "Them", she underlined the word,

"to have done this to Mulder."

""THEM"?" Frohike asked.

"The same." She said.

"Control. That's why they've done this. That's always why."

Byers said. There was no need to remind the group that Scully

still carried her own physical evidence of "Them" and their

control. The chip was still nestled in place. The knowledge of

how her own DNA having been invaded, her immune system

ravaged and then her body left to compost the "garbage" had not

been forgotten by the room's occupants.

"IF they've done it and, anyway, it doesn't explain the

scars." Langley reminded them.

Scully cleared her throat. "The problem is I can see no reason

why they would feel the need to control Mulder or harm him the

way he's been harmed. I was hoping you might have heard something

that would explain the spurious code we're seeing."

Langley looked at Byers who looked back at her. Both shook

their heads. Frohike muttered a far away "sorry" and was silent.

"How is Mulder?" Byers asked.

Scully gathered up her coat. "I haven't seen him for two

weeks. The last time, he was...there was no visible change. I'm

flying out tomorrow and staying until the weekend."

"IF THERE'S ANYTHING MORE WE CAN DO..." Frohike said, "CALL

US ANYTIME, DAY OR NIGHT."

Scully smiled. "Thanks, Frohike. Thanks guys. I'll say hello from

you."

For all the good it'll do, she thought.

Dana Scully had finished arguing with the admitting nurse and

was now having a polite if strained conversation with Munroe. Bryant

was at a conference and not available to "discuss Mulder with her".

Kurtzman was not a ward doctor and though was responsible for

prescribing medication to Mulder and had access to Bryant's notes

on Mulder, he had no direct authority in the Infirmary.

"How are you treating the pneumonia?"

Munroe stiffly laded out for her the standard treatments being

administered and now she was in the infirmary, seeing for herself.

Mulder looked horrible. As far as she was concerned as bad as that

first day. Worse, even. No thinner (thank god!), but still flesh less

and pasty and he couldn't or wouldn't look at her over his oxygen

mask. There were other patients almost as bad off but they didn't

have masks or I.V. drips.

Scully wanted to touch Mulder but had no idea how he would react

to it. Sitting on her hands, she simply watched him. Occasionally,

watery, droopy eyes would open but not look her way.

Munroe told her what he knew about Mulder's therapy, emphasizing

he was not the attending psychiatrist. But as for progress, there

was none. Mulder had attended four of Bryant's group sessions during

his lucid hours when he would actually emerge from himself and speak.

Those times being arbitrary and rare, he usually just turned violent.

The first two sessions he had refused to speak. The third time, when

he did, he made his opinion clear about what the hospital and doctors

could do with their Group Discussions:

"Do you have something to say, Mister Mulder?"

"Yeah, can we stop all this genuflecting please. I have a

weak stomach."

"If you have something to add, we'd like to hear it."

""We"? I didn't hear anyone else say Aye."

"This group which includes you collectively agreed to hear each

other out and then discuss things. Nothing is hidden here."

"You believe that?"

"Say what you want to say, Mister Mulder, we always encourage each

other to get in touch-"

""Yes, I've heard: Get In Touch With My Feelings." I get "in touch"

with myself every night for five minutes before I go to sleep. You're

right, Doc', it helps."

"Communication is encouraged but we'd appreciate it if you would

refrain from the profanity-."

"Jesus! "Communicate" this!"

"-and crude gesturing as well. If you have nothing to add to our

group discussion, you can leave."

"I HAVE something to add - this is a crock! - half of these

slobs are so stoned on cocktail they don't know if its their tongue or

their dick hanging out. The only reason they're here at all is because

you wanted the job and their families wanted hope and the fucking

pathetic thing is, they're not going to get even that! Jesus Christ, you

ask me to share my feelings and you think you're exploring something

profound?? Have you even looked at these people?? They're drugged

until they're zombies, kept under lock and key, spoon-fed pablum, look

at them! - they're sitting here in the middle of a working day in fucking

pajamas! - And then they send YOU in, to try and infuse them with

"human dignity" and "self-worth"! Holy shit, don't you see how fucking

ridiculous this is!!"

The last time he had "participated", he'd smashed the window with a

chair and tried to push, first himself and the then orderly called

to subdue him, through it, bars and all.

"Hey." Scully said, expecting no response and getting none. But he

looked right at her, however, and even that tiny acknowledgment made

her heart sing. "You will get better, you know."

Wanting so badly to touch him, she hoped her words might. "I know

that's hard to believe, Mulder, but I think there's still some fight left in

you, and I think you want to get well. I just wish you would talk to me."

No answer. He continued staring at her though. Was there recognition

there? Gladness, even?

Her cell phone rang. "Scully."

"Scully?" It was Skinner.

"Sir?" She hadn't told him she was coming to Boston. He wasn't

her direct superior after all and there was no need to keep him informed

of her movements. Except for that she knew he cared and would want

to know.

"How's Mulder?" Skinner asked from D.C..

She stood and moved to the window. Heard Mulder's nasally breathing

in the background, slow and steady. "Okay I guess. Sick though. Flu'.

Pneumonia complications." She heard Skinner sigh.

"Anything I can do?"

Scully smiled. A tiny one. "No, not really. He's getting all the anti-

biotics he needs. I recommended a few new ones." They both knew why. The

"fingerprint." They still didn't know what it was and they could hardly

just arbitrarily announce that the man had "somehow" been exposed

to "unidentifiable genetic matter" without there being everything from

scoffing to outright alarm in the halls of medicine. "But thanks, Walter..."

She still wasn't used to calling him that despite their almost physical

rendezvous..."Thank you for calling."

"I'm concerned about you both."

She knew he was still waiting for a decision. But, in truth she

hadn't allowed herself to think about a relationship with Walter

Skinner. She hadn't even explored her own feelings for Mulder lately,

being too tired from work and worrying about him and dodging her

mothers inquiries. She just didn't feel like justifying herself

to mom or anyone. No time or room enough.

"Listen, I've got a flight out in a few hours. Do you want to meet

and discuss the latest?" She was referring to the continuing research

the Lone Gunmen had been doing for her about Mulder's second seemingly

dormant genetic string. Scully was convinced it was a lurking monster

that sooner or later would rear it's grotesque head to devour them.

"Good idea. When?"

Scully checked her watch. "Umm, nine P.M.? Usual place?"

"See you then." Skinner hung up. Scully turned back to

Mulder. He had his eyes closed. Sleeping.

She had to go. Took a risk and kissed his forehead very softly

before quietly leaving the room.


	3. Chapter 3

TITLE: "FOCUS" (Sequel to "PhaHks")- Part III/4.

AUTHOR: GeeLady (GenieVB)

RATING: NC-17. MT/ScSkR/MScR/MOR/MAJOR ANGST!, language,

violence, sexually explicit scenes, Slash-violent rape, adult situations.

SPOILERS: "PhaHks" by GeeLady (GenieVB). Various X-Files

episodes.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ian intercepted her as she was waiting for the down elevator.

"Doctor Scully?"

Over a quick coffee in the windowless cafeteria, Scully

was feeling a little better about her visit. Her sudden impulse

to fly out had been right and not just because of Mulder's

illness. She'd been feeling anxious over him without cause.

At least cause beyond that he was in a mental institution.

Now she was less anxious.

"I'm glad to know he has someone here who's watching him,

looking out for him." This Ian seemed to like his work with

mental patients and he'd brought her up to date on Fox. Not

the medical side, but the human one.

"Sometimes he has lucid moments. Yesterday he was playing cards

with Joseph. He's fine unless he's touched. And he can't eat certain

things without throwing them back up." Ian was explaining.

"I know. Munroe told me."

"You know, if there's anything I can do, all you have to do is ask.

I'm only here four days per week, afternoons and evenings, but I

kind of took to Fox right away. I know it sounds crazy but, I have

a sense about people. It's not psychic or anything, but I get vibes..."

he laughed at himself. .."sentience maybe. Fox is sane, somewhere

in there, but I think just afraid to come out."

Mulder's unofficial nurse was a believer in the paranormal or one

who had experienced it. Scully was amused and pleased too. Mulder

attracted strange things and people. Ian wasn't strange but he

wasn't normal, in the psychological sense, either. He "sensed" things,

whatever that meant and truly cared about the sick, whether

directly under his charge or not. And he seemed to possess infinite

patience so, as a care giver for Mulder, Ian was perfect.

"Thank you." She had a thought. "Listen. Here's my number." Handed

him a card. "It's my personal cellular number and," scribbling on the

back of it, "my home phone number as well." Ian accepted it. "If

anything happens that you think I should know about, would you

call me? They don't always keep me up to date unless I get Bryant

or Munroe on the phone and argue like hell. The "I'm F.B.I. and I

can ruin your life" threat's wearing a bit thin."

He smiled. "Sure. I'd be glad to."

They parted.

"Where's Mulder?" Ian asked the next day at the ward station.

"Isolation."

He found out why later from Ramsey. Wished he could have talked to

Janice but it was her day off.

"Ten minutes out of the Infirmary he got a hold of a lighter somehow

and burnt himself." Ramsey said.

"Accident?"

With his usual charm, "Fuck no. He set that thing to its highest

flame and held it to his forearm 'till he screamed. Fuck, man, until

the flesh was black and smoking and bubbling. Snap, crackle, pop."

Ian swallowed. What had happened between yesterday and today?

Jesus.

"He'll lose the feeling in a couple fingers, they figure and

have one hell of a scar for the rest of his life." Ramsey sounded

pleased.

A call for help. A protest. Ian had read about stunts like that.

That's what they meant. A mute's plea.

Hadn't anyone noticed if Fox had been acting unusual? Ian

immediately shook his head at the dumb question. Nobody looked

at or heard a patient unless they had to.

That night, though it was late, he called Dana Scully. No, the

doctors hadn't called her about it. She was understandably upset

but couldn't fly out again until the next weekend. She asked Ian

again to keep a close eye on her friend and if anymore happened,

to please call her immediately. She thanked him and Ian pressed the

"end" button on the phone.

"Who was that?" Gary asked, slouched on the sofa. He was finally

back on days and enjoying his late evening television again.

"Doctor Scully."

"Fox?" Gary asked, by now familiar with the goings-on of Ian's

newest human concern.

"Yeah."

"Listen, I found out some stuff on him. But I don't know if it'll

do any good. What has this Scully told you anyway?"

"Nothing personal. I think she wants to protect his privacy. I don't

blame her, I mean he's her friend. Probably more."

"Well. Little Luddy dug up some stuff for me and broke some laws

doing it."

Ian returned from the kitchen with the cordless in his hand.

"What did he find out?"

"This Mulder was F.B.I., but what we didn't know was the

kind of work he did. Weird shit. Everything from serial

killer hunting to ghost tracking to chasing UFO's. He was a

hell raiser, this guy. Maybe the work drove him bananas."

Ian tried to mold the destroyed soul he saw on an almost daily

basis with the crusader Gary was describing. It wasn't easy.

"What else?" He scooted close beside his lover.

"We dug up his file. His case. He went missing for eight years.

Just showed up again two and a half months ago. The medical report

would make you want to hide. No wonder he's where he is." When Gary

gave Ian some details, the room went cold or he did.

"Christ."

"You might be biting off more than you can chew with this guy, Ian.

He might really be crazy. I know how good you are but all I'm saying

is be careful."

Bryant's sessions seemed to be doing little good in Kurtzman's

opinion. As much was reported to Doctor Scully who in turn managed

to come up with the extra money to cover the costs of Kurtzman's

fee's so he could take Mulder as client on a limited basis as well.

Personal attention was the key.

"Why don't you tell me what lead you to burning your arm like

that?"

Mulder heard the doctor's words. Bothersome.

Doc wanted another book for his shelf.

Nothing had made him do it. He'd chosen to. It was all about free

choice. Bryant had said it. "If you just want to, you can get well."

He had wanted to do the burning. A thoughtful visitor had provided

the Bic lighter unawares and he'd done it. That was all. No hidden

agendas.

Nothing to tell Kurtzman about reasons except that it had been

important, necessary and afterward, he was better.

Played cards all afternoon with Joseph with the burn hidden

beneath the sleeve of his PJ's. Shit, though burned up, he'd kept

Martin from wackin' his weenie in front of the female visitors who'd

passed them on their way to which crazy belonged to who.

He'd performed a vital service to them. The hole was a monument.

He looked at it a lot. Hadn't hardly felt the flame.

Kurtzman sighed.

Mulder smiled only to himself. Kurtzman wanted a play by play

from center court. -Fuck you!-

Mulder, from a discreet distance, watched as Kurtzman dropped his

mouth open to speak. It was often the way it happened when patients

refused to cooperate with the learned methods of psychiatry; answer for

the patient. It was not in the Manuals but doctors did it all the time

anyway. Fox had had a PhD. Once.

"I think you did it to get back at me..."

Oh, yes. Switching places at center court, that was also done. It was

necessary to keep things in their proper order. Doctor here and patient

there. Just in case the patient forgot who really was the important one.

"..or to punish someone,.."

Wrong.

"..the hospital maybe, to gain a bit of control,.."

Wrong. Wrong.

"..any kind of control over your life."

Wrongwrongwrong!

Brilliant. Patient in rags eating through a tube is upset at having

lost control over life. Burns his arm to get it back.

God, if that was true, he was the Fire-king of his own kingdom - his

flesh. His death. It had felt marvelous.

Kurtzman sighed. Time was up. Wrote out a prescription for an increase

in the TriptoZac he had Mulder on.

Mulder wandered out into the Day room.

Martin was there along with a few others. He moved towards

Mulder without looking like he was doing it on purpose. Mulder's

reputation was powerful. He hit Orderlies, Doctors. Anyone.

That was to be respected and feared.

"Kurtzman?" Martin said.

Mulder nodded but said nothing in reply. Enough to show that

he wasn't going to speak and Martin understood, obliging by

moving off in the other direction before their accidental meeting

collided.

Mulder wanted to sleep but the wards and the beds in them

were off limits between lunch and dinner unless by special

request from a nurse or doctor who determined you were ill

enough to lie down.

Designated "Activity Time", the afternoons were nothing other

than mental doldrums. Made to keep patients from too much physical

lounging, they made up for it in mental sleep. Lethargy in all its

forms was abundant and many of the patients were fat from it.

Except him.

It was called the Puke Diet.

Trouble was, there was nothing to do but slouch around and be crazy.

No exercise program to speak of at Walburg. No "activities" provided

either. No one on his ward even colored with crayons, the stylus's

ending up in patient's stomachs.

Paper, another material coveted by the bored inmates, was forbidden

because of him. He played with flame. Paper burned.

"Dana?" Mom Scully was being extra careful with her words. She did

not want her daughter leaving. Dana needed this time. Bill and Tara

and the kids, Dana needed to see these things. Family. Maybe some

peace for just one evening.

"Yeah, Mom?" Dana rose from the couch and her novel.

At least she was reading something besides progress reports on Fox.

"Would you make some coffee, my hands are floured?" Cherry pie crust.

Canned cherries. Cool Whip. Ready-Make-Do because she did not want to

be in the kitchen too much for Christmas and Dana on the couch alone.

"Sure."

Margaret Scully watched her daughter. She did not want Dana to stop

thinking of Fox, she just wanted her to think of other things too. Every

day, normal things. Happy things. Anything besides Fox in That Place. She

cared, too.

"He's not getting any better, mom." Dana offered the unsolicited

information just as the coffee began to drip through the filter with

maddening slowness.

Margaret felt a pang. He'd been a good man. Fox deserved better

than this. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." She refrained from hugging her,

Dana didn't seem to want it lately. She'd lost weight.

"It's been almost four months, is there no improvement at all?"

Margaret asked and rolled dough.

"None that I can see. Four months isn't long, though..."

Margaret bit her lip.

"..Not after eight years."

Had to say it. It was eating her up. "I don't want to see you alone

forever, Dana."

Dana stirred her coffee idly, watching the tiny oily patterns shine

under the ceiling light. "How long would have been too long?"

She turned to face her mom. "For you? When Dad went away? When

it was war and you had no idea how long it would last? No idea

if he would even come home? If he'd gone missing in action? How

long would have been too long for you?"

The dough was rolled thin and lifted to be flipped to it's other side.

Roughly slapping the table. "This isn't the same and you know it."

Staring back at her daughter with all the stubbornness she'd passed

down to her. She folded the dough. "Maybe you should prepare

yourself-"

"Don't. Mom, don't even." Dana poured them both coffee's and took hers

away onto the couch again. Picked up her book and buried all thought

in the author's world.

Margarete leaned against the counter, fighting the need to scream.

Yes!, she'd cared for Fox. But goddamn it, he had no right to hold

this power over her daughter! Margarete wanted to scream and beat at

him and send him back to oblivion. She wanted to scream: Get well

or die!

Fox's illness had spread to Dana, and mother and daughter'd had

more than just today's discussion over him.

Dana loved him. Yes, she understood that. But that was the old

Fox Mulder. The new and decidedly not improved version was a canker

in her life.

Margrette was not unfeeling. Pity, sorrow, sympathy, heartache for that

man stirred around in her. Empathy for her daughter who loved him

bitterly. Who could not let go.

Even Bill knew better than to raise the subject of his chosen nemesis

with his sister at any time lest he be shot down faster than Enemy

Aircraft. Even Bill knew when to leave well enough alone.

It was going to be an unhappy Christmas.

"Come on, hurry up."

Mulder was showering. He'd had to obtain special permission because

at this time of night the showers were supposed to be closed and locked.

But he'd woken up covered in his own vomit. Normally, he would have

simply shed his garments and curled up on the linoleum. But the night orderly

who made his rounds of the wards had taken to kicking him in the back if

he found a bed dripping in mess and the occupant curled up on the floor

underneath.

So, after wiping off as much of the sour smelling liquid as he could

with a square of the clean part of the sheet, he'd walked to the "Cage",

where the guards and night staff hung out, drinking coffee, chatting

or reading. One whiff of him and they'd sent him off with two of the

staff to guard him as he sluiced himself down in one of the rusted stalls.

Fox saw who one of them was and felt better; Ross, the source of his

candy supply. It was the only solid food that stayed down and sometimes

even filled the echoing hollowness within.

"Aren't you done yet?" They didn't usually call patients by name. Usually

didn't call them anything but "Hey".

Mulder switched the water off and felt strangely exposed as he had to

walk the length of the shower room to find a towel. In typical

institution fashion, the towels were all the way across thirty feet

of freezing tile.

He dried himself, shivering. Water vapor condensed and dripped

off the walls and him. He wondered if he would be made to change

his own bed sheets.

Hands grabbed him from behind and slammed him against the wall,

driving the breath from his body. Words were whispered in his ear

that at first he didn't understand.

When a hand grabbed his hair, it yanked his head back, stretching his

throat until darkness threatened. Another paw clamped over his mouth,

stifling his startled cry.

Wicked words polluted his ear and he understood.

"After all I've done for you, you stab me? I've got a scar on my

face because of you." His hair was pulled harder and he felt some

separate from his scalp. "You been enjoying those candy bars, haven't you

Crazy Fox? Do they taste good?" He was pulled away from the wall and

slammed back again. "Well, I'll bet you taste good. I'll bet you taste

just as sweet. Sweet and hot and wet."

He was forced to the floor while hands stilled his arms and

a heavy body sat on his thighs. Demon noises and gorilla

breath assaulted his ears and nose.

He tried screaming through the cloth that was shoved into his

mouth. Gagged.

It hadn't occurred to him that Ross might be angry about what

happened. That stabbing this two-legged creature who brought him

food and cleaned up his messes might not have been appreciated; that

it might have, in fact, hurt and angered it. But he'd stopped thinking

in the terms of living creatures. Being dead himself, he tended to

view those around him the same way and his own actions unrelated

to potential consequences because he was no longer alive and

didn't matter. Nothing did.

Ross getting mad hadn't even crossed his mind.

Fingers groped him, spread his butt cheeks, found the tightly

clenched hole and an agony invaded.

A baton, in and out that left gifts of stinging slivers. A hundred

reminders that he was a convenience and nothing else. The

candy? - tokens free of life or even pity. A price paid to gain

his trust. He'd come cheap as usual.

Fox screamed but the sound was impossibly muffled. If anybody

heard it, it would be dismissed. The crazy always screamed.

He heard a zipper and sounds of yanked clothing. Something tore.

"Fuck." Candy-Man cursed, whispered into his ear, "I know you like

candy, that's why I brought it for you. Now it's time for you to

give me yours, Crazy. I'm gonna take what's owed, darlin'. I've

been thinking about it for a while now. How sweet you look. I've

been getting ready for a long time." The Candy-man spoke harshly

to his assistant-rapist. "Hold him still!"

Mulder bucked and fought for the leftover crumbs of his sanity.

"Santa's got something special for you." The baton was jerked

in and out once, twice and again. Then another weapon made of

demon-turned-human-flesh was there. Smooth but it would hurt

worse in the deeper parts of him, where it still counted.

Not-again-notagainnotagainnotagain!

His silent pleas were replaced by screams through the washcloth

as Candy-Man penetrated him dry, forcing the instrument of death

passed his sphincter without a care in the world and certainly none

for the corpse he was violating.

"Oh, yeah, yeah, baby. Fight. Fight! Makes it sweeter, makes it

tighter!"

"Hurry up." Other voice said. "I haven't had a turn yet and it's

almost A.M. Counts."

Fox twisted and gagged. A baton pummeled his rib cage and

he surrendered his small cups of air in screams. The cloth was shoved

in deeper until whole breaths came only every second or third try.

Grunts and groans from above and behind. Jerking and

stabbing knives from inside. Fox felt like he would split apart,

his mind screaming and screaming, his lips sealed with dirty

rags as senses reeled from the feel of blood dribbling down

the crack of his cold ass to bath his scrotum in heat.

Real death must come now, he knew. It was as inevitable as

his shame at the pleasure/pain he felt as the demon-shoot

licked at his gland and caused his own member to harden.

Fox screamed for pain and the for mind-destroying pleasure that

came with a sodomizing rape.

Mostly pain. But he couldn't be glad over that. It was not

enough to balance the scales. He was still left wanting. He

would die.

Candy-Man shuddered and sighed. Fox felt filth spray into

his body to remain for all time.

Poison to kill him.

The thing inside him lost its power and was withdrawn.

One presence changed places with another and the nightmare of

pain and disbelief started all over again. But this time escape

was possible.

Fox felt himself die.

"Hey." Ian, on morning/afternoon rotation stopped by the

ward of his favorite charge. Fox was curled up on his side

on Martin's bed.

"Hey." Ian shook his shoulder just a little, aware of how

much Fox hated being touched.

Fox didn't stir.

Ian pulled back the blanket Fox had wrapped himself up in. He

wasn't wearing any pajamas. "Hey, Mulder. Come on, buddy, you're

in the wrong bed. Do you want Martin's hemorrhoids to get worse?

Where the hell are your clothes?"

Ian shook him harder, eliciting a groan from the slumbering

patient. Fox felt hot.

"You sick again, Muld-" Ian noticed a stain on the sheets beneath

Fox and looked closer.

Blood.

Ian went for help. Mulder was moved to the infirmary, his privates

and anus examined, blood and fluid samples were taken, the slides

checked. Confirmation made. Antibiotics injected. He was cleaned up.

Ian put a call through to Doctor Scully. There was no answer either

on her cellular or at her home. He took a chance and called another

name on Fox's emergency contact list.

Walter Skinner sounded sickened by the news and assured him, though

it was the holidays, he had a good idea where she might be and would

relay the information to Doctor Scully immediately.

Ian felt a bit better after hanging up the phone. Fox had people

who cared at least. Maybe they cared enough to get him out

of Walburg.

"Two types of semen. Anal trauma..." Scully felt sick to her stomach.

It was all she could muster to keep the contents of last nights dinner

to herself. " Bryant's monotone went on. "...He has a cracked rib. They

worked him over pretty good."

Scully heard the unspoken. "Not only on the surface." She underlined.

"Who did it?"

"We don't know."

Martin came out of his "down" and shuffled the corridors until he

found him. The one they all liked. Never throw food at this one. It

was an accepted rule of the patients, one learned without actually

being taught.

"I saw who done that to him." Martin announced in his "down" quiet

way.

Ian looked up from his duty with Thomas who was having trouble finding

his bed among the dozen in his section of the ward. Ian was gently

guiding him.

"What was that, Martin?" Ian looked around surprised to find Martin

speaking during a downer, but didn't stop his movement down the hall

with Thomas. Once one got Thomas accelerated into motion, it was always

prudent to keep it that way, lest he decide that sleeping or going to

the bathroom right on the spot was the grander notion.

"I saw who hurt him. Who stuck that thing up 'im."

Ian called over his shoulder to Ramsey who took over the guidance of

Thomas after a bit of moaning.

Ian took Martin aside and spoke quietly. "How do you know that, Martin?"

"I saw. I wanted to sit in the water..."

Ian understood. Martin sometimes slipped out of his bed at night. One of

the night Orderlies would be convinced to unlock the bathroom so he

could flip up a lid and sit his cheeks in the cold water. Thank god for

Martin's piles, Ian thought.

"And I was in there when they come in to shower him. Then they started..."

Martin swallowed. "They stuck one of their sticks up him and then did...other

things. He bled a lot. I was too scared..."

Ian went pale. Where the hell was Ross today?

He had not showed up for work it was soon discovered. Neither he nor his

joined-at-the-hip pal. Ian added his voice to Martin's in the way of character

witness. Yes, Fox often threw up at night. And, no, Martin was not a fibber,

he often sat in the toilet.

Serving their time through "Community Service"; Ross and his fellow

rapist.

"That's why they've been working at Walburg." Bryant later explained

to Scully, adding, "nothing like this has ever happened before."

She knew he meant "at Walburg". Because it certainly had happened

before. It was an old scenario replayed over and over through-out the

social structure. In long term institutions of all variety. In the

education system as well. Who hadn't heard of an all boys school coming

forward with it's awful tales of abuse and molestations twenty years

after the fact? Who hadn't heard of that or something like it?

So why the hell not a mental hospital? The visitors would be less

abundant and less frequent - Scully felt an especially guilty pang - the

environment even more isolated and controlled. And, under the very

circumstances that made a mental hospital mental, claims of victims

would hardly be believed.

Scully had comprehended these things. As an F.B.I. Agent, she'd

encountered similar inhumanities. Now she empathized. Understood all

too well those relatives and parents who had said: "I can't understand.

I trusted them! How could they DO this? Why would they hurt my

child/husband/wife/parent?"

"When will he be well enough to travel?" Scully asked.

Bryant took one look at her and knew he had nothing to say in

protest to her obvious decision to move the patient out of there.

Charges would be laid against the perpetrators when they were

apprehended. An investigation of the facilities by, he didn't

doubt for a second, the F.B.I. itself would soon commence.

"Two or three days."

Scully made a quick visit to Mulder's recovery bed. He was heavily

sedated. She was glad for it. Mulder had been experiencing significant

pain before Nurse had come with her injections.

Mulder was still the color of milk. The other small physical signs of

trauma were there as well in the aftermath of the attack-

-rape.

She wanted to die.

Skinner opened the investigation on Walburg himself. Being Director

certainly had its uses. There were few times in his life he'd indulged

in revenge. He didn't know what this one would taste like.

"How can you afford it?" He watched Scully tossing her clothes into

suitcases from the hotel dresser. Flight out of Boston in two hours.

They'd been in Boston for four days and Mulder was ready to be

transferred back to D.C.. Scully had found a place. It was private,

expensive and Mulder would be a fifty minute drive tops.

"I'll find the money. Walburg will have to reimburse me in part."

"That won't come anywhere near to covering what this other place

costs."

She stopped. "What the hell does money have to do with anything?

I said I'll get it."

He watched her fold blouses, slacks, underwear. "I don't like seeing

you throw your life away." Regretted it the second it escaped. He

knew what it had sounded like but it was not what he'd meant.

Bras were furiously jammed into one corner of the Airliner carry-on.

Her voice matched her determined hands. "The last time money was a

concern, it got Mulder beaten and hurt." Didn't have the courage to

say the other word aloud. Tone lower, more steady. "I'm not throwing

anything away."

Skinner had been sitting on the bed, bouncing up a down a bit by

her rhythmic stuffing of her suitcase. Now he went to stare out the

window and listened as she laid it out for him as he knew she would.

Scully carried arguments to their conclusion.

"I'll cash in my own securities. My retirement funds, sell everything

if I have to, borrow, beg..."

"And leave yourself what if it doesn't work?" He came back to the bed

and stood in front of her, blocking her assault on the travel case. "What

if Mulder doesn't get well? What if he's in there or somewhere else for

the rest of his life-?"

"-I put him there!" Her words mowed his down like an AK 47. "So I

lose my money. I don't care. Don't you get it? Mulder's lost everything!

Even his choices. He has no options now except what I can give him."

Where did Skinner get off thinking because they'd seen each others

privates, he suddenly had the right to question and argue? she wondered.

Skinner grabbed her arms, firmly. Gentled. Rubbed them. "Scully..."

She collapsed into him and sobbed like a child. Sex wasn't the on-ramp to

a solution but she wanted him. His steadiness. His good, comforting,

ready to take charge saneness.

Mulder. Mulder, what have you done to me?! Her mind screamed then felt

guilty for thinking it.

"If - IF - he is your responsibility, then just remember that it's not

your fault. Recognize the difference." He said the useless words knowing

she wouldn't believe them.

GREENLAWN RECOVERY CENTER. WASHINGTON, D.C.

Office of Doctor Carl Petrillo.

Doctor Petrillo had an hour before his next appointment.

A rare period to unwind - to hell with the paperwork

sitting neglected beside his In Box- and soothe his headache

with a mug full of Masala Chai and the walnut muffins and aspirin

his wife always packed for him. Yeah, doctors felt shitty sometimes

too.

He put his feet up and leaned back, relishing in that useful

but rare thing: free time.

It niggled at him though, that thick yellow folder sitting

center desk. He had to admit he was curious. It wasn't

often a private case came his way.

Petrillo sat forward and opened it, muffin crumbs

sprinkling the printed and hand-written notes under his

eyes. Doctors reports, medical conditions, past and present.

Recent history, as much as was known:

Mulder. Fox William,

Petrillo read for many minutes, flipping pages and

going back to re-read, checking physicians notes, initial

diagnoses, drugs administered, reactions to medication,

alternative treatment.

""Treatment-s"." Petrillo muttered aloud. He frowned. Re-read

aloud a few things that refused to sink in. ""eight years,...

suspected violent...beating-s",..." Petrillo gulped his tea.

"..."mental and physical abus-es"..." Plenty of plurals in

this file.

Read the childhood history (dysfunctional), educational

background (Oxford PhD). Some of the family history. "Sister

disappeared age eight when boy was twelve. No clear

memory...catatonic state for four days post-event...child

abuse thought factor...".

Psychological Profile: Photographic memory. Genius I.Q.

but long running stress/sleep disorders interlaced with self-

destructive behaviors. Few friends. Obsessive. "There

have been episodes of cognitive disassociation"."

An obsessive, self-destructive genius with few friends.

Less extraordinary than people knew. Genius - a high

functioning brain - by its very nature was obsessive. Self-

destructive because patience lacked in a mind that left most

others in its dust. Few friends because people didn't like

being left behind and shown up as mediocre.

Petrillo skimmed his new clients work history. ""Dedicated but

insubordinate, brilliant, arrogant,"..." Yet his "closure rate"

(he recognized the law enforcement terminology) had been

high.

Partner in Bureau: Agent Dana K. Scully, MD. Pathologist.

Now he understood why the file was so complete. Partner,

and doctor. She wanted this guy to get well and had handed

Petrillo all the ammunition she thought he might need. Friend

to the genius. No dummy herself or she wouldn't have gone

the distance.

He read some of the later details regarding the events at

Walburg. Petrillo shook his head. "Whew..."

Wondered if he could refuse the case after all. It was a lot

to bite off.

At the back of the file he found a note paper-clipped to

the inside. It was a hand-written missive from Doctor

Scully:

/"Doctor Petrillo,

I have given you all the information available regarding

F. Mulder's case. I would appreciate it if you and I can

maintain a running dialogue on his treatment and progress..."/

She thinks there'll be progress. It's always good news that

clients and their families had confidence in one at least. It

was more than he felt about his ability to treat this new client

thus far. The case was not to be believed.

/"...If you'll forgive me, I have researched your work history.."/

Ah. She would naturally. F.B.I..

/"...and you come highly recommended by certain individuals.

Please understand that my friend - Mulder - will be a difficult

client. He has had good reason to mistrust authority and the

medical profession in general..."/

Oh, that must have been quite a high wire working relationship.

/"...and will probably not cooperate with you. After what

happened at Walburg, I am sure you can comprehend his reluctance.

As well, there are things about him, that is, his medical

condition, that are known only to select people including

myself. At this time, we feel this cannot be shared until we

have more concrete confirmation. But the condition to which

I refer is not contagious in any way. I have included a

medical report on his general physical health to support my

statement, however if you intend a second, independent examination,

I would only ask you inform me.

We want him to get well. If you feel this case would entail

too much of your time which I know is limited, please tell

me now. I would also appreciate this letter be kept between

you and I alone. Thank you, Dana Scully."/

Petrillo's eyebrows climbed his forehead.

He would take the case.

It sounded too interesting not to.

The first thing Petrillo noticed about his new patient

was not the anger or yelling or biting sarcasm that usually

belied hidden hurt.

It was the total silence.

And the slackness of expression.

This was one of the few patients he'd ever accepted just on

the word of another. A care giver but also a doctor who had

insisted to him that her tired friend was not crazy.

Carl Petrillo was a staff psychiatrist but working with

the frankly demented had never been his strong suit. He didn't

like to medicate if it could be helped and he didn't like

word association or hypno-therapy or anything that might

water down the honest sickness or pain the patient was

feeling.

Numbing a person with drugs might control some symptoms short-

term, unless they were suffering chemically induced mental illness;

unless their brain chemistry was pumping the wrong stuff, too

much of this and not enough of that, but the problems still

had to be addressed and those he had found were usually rooted in

nothing more mysterious than simple feelings. Emotions in an

upheaval. Overflowing or so stopped up the result was what he

was seeing before him now: a mute human who saw no use in

acknowledging anything let alone himself.

He had Doctor Scully's assurance that this was the case with

Fox Mulder. He was not crazy.

Well, he would find out soon enough.

Petrillo checked Fox's chart. Valium - Petrillo saw the lethargy

in the rounded shoulders and hunched back - /tell me something I

don't know./ He'd read Fox's recent history including the medical

data, the list of old injuries and new, the general physical state

and the events (some that shook even Petrillo, who'd seen much, to

the core of his compassion) that had lead this individual with

the tired eyes to this place and moment in time.

Petrillo had read this information at an earlier date, but did so

again while the patient was seated before him so the words on paper

could be tied to a real, living creature and the "facts" be made

personal. In the end, diagnoses were only partially accurate he

had found.

Petrillo thrust the chart under his wooden seat and looked for a

few minutes at Fox Mulder, the paranoid, delusional, schizophrenic

who had tried to kill an orderly. Who'd burned his arm with fire

until achieving an oozing, black hole.

Fox had been an F.B.I. agent in another life. A good one or so

he had been told. Doctor Scully had told him a great deal about this

man for whom she cared. He'd listened and nodded, acknowledging

her desire to let Petrillo in on the secret that Mulder had not

always been this way, that he really was not this way at all.

But a badge didn't exclude one from the human race.

Even kings went crazy.

"Is there nothing you want to tell me?" Petrillo decided to start

simply.

No answer and he hadn't expected one. Some patients never shut

up at first. Some never spoke.

"I guess you're pretty pissed off about being in another hospital.

Locks and bars and lousy food and patronizing doctors." Doctors

really could be patronizing ass holes, may as well clear the air

right off. "Well, I'm here to help you if that's what you want. I tell

you the truth right now, I'm not sure how. But as long as we're

working together, you'll have your own private room. Only two

people have keys to it, myself and Eugena."

Eugena was the petite little ward night Head Nurse whom everyone

liked. Even the sickest patients trusted her. Petrillo decided to

voice the key business for two reasons. He wanted Fox to feel safe at

Greenlawn, so he was letting Fox know that no-one had access to his

room or him except his therapist and the trusted Eugena. But Petrillo

also wanted his patient to understand that the safety continued only

if they continued working together. Otherwise Fox might end up with

another doctor altogether and who knows which nurse on which shift

would get the spare key to his room.

It was kind of a dick-headed thing to do but if it worked (and it

had once or twice in the past), he was sure he would be forgiven.

His patient sighed, a very long, slow breath of stale room air.

Up to that moment Petrillo had wondered if the guy was breathing at

all.

"Well. We'll still meet each day if that's all right with you. I

imagine they've given you no choice and since I work here I have to

fulfill my part and come here every day,.."

Had his new charge really been through all the stuff he'd read

on the chart? Wouldn't that be enough to make anyone prefer

death? Fox had burnt his own flesh. But Petrillo wondered if that

had been more a call to life than death. Maybe the guy just wanted

to feel something again, even excruciating pain.

"...so we'll meet and just be quiet together. There's nothing wrong

with quiet. But if you do feel like talking, I'm hell at listening."

It went that way each day. Petrillo talking and his patient ignoring

the talk.

It went that way for weeks.

Until one day Petrillo tried something that had worked before. Once

in a nine year old boy who had suffered the most horrible abuses

by his mother. A highly intelligent boy who had learned to cope

with his pain by reading and learning and shutting down his mind to

all else.

He'd come to Greenlawn, cooperative and mute. Petrillo had tried

everything that was suppose to work to get the kid talking. Nothing had.

Until one day...

He may as well try it here.

Fox entered his therapists office and sat in his usual spot. Immediately

he noticed the thing painted on the wall. It was a two digit number printed

in large, black letters. It had not been there before. It was out of place,

a picture in fact had been moved to accommodate it.

I meant nothing to him.

It meant nothing for days and days.

Petrillo could see the curiosity swelling in his client. Obsessive mind. Fox

had a need to know. Always to know. The reasons, the whys,

the how-comes. Mute's see far more than they want people to think

they do. Silence isn't so much crazy as stubbornness. It was an unspoken

"fuck-you" to the world.

"Why?" Fox asked one day, looking at Petrillo and gesturing to the

mystery number, jabbing a pissed off finger at the wall.

"Your age." Petrillo answered.

Fox stared. "Which of us here is insane?"

"Are you?"

"Insane. Delusional. Paranoid. A great ass-fuck, take your pick."

Petrillo didn't nod, but he didn't fail to notice the flippant, off-the-cuff

way Fox had related that last bit of information. Lumping the brutal rape in

with things that were said to be wrong with him. And he didn't get too

excited over this sudden dialogue with a man who had made a decision never to

speak again. Petrillo kept speaking calmly as if they were buddies who'd been

chatting for weeks. Soon enough, Fox would realize his error for allowing

curiosity get the upper hand and retreat back into his womb. He would try to

reaffirm his visible insanity for Petrillo by becoming a statue. Death by mind.

"This isn't multiple choice." Petrillo tapped his pad with his pencil, neither

speaking for a moment. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

Fox sighed. "Why are trying to dig me up?"

"Because your feelings have buried you alive."

Mulder's heart betrayed his belief in being extinct by beating hard

and fast. Petrillo words were dangerous, they had a power.

"Leave me out of your psycho-babble, Petrillo, you're out of your

depth."

"Can't do that, I'm afraid. I'm no genius but I know pain when I

see it, even when it's hidden under insults."

"What the hell do you want from me?!" Fox stood and paced

but came no closer to the doctor with the lightening tongue.

"I think you have a sickness, call it insanity if you want or

just plain old feeling "bad" but that's why you're here, Fox.

I'm here to help you. You have to want that help. If you do, I'll

do my best. Let me start by saying I won't lie to you or betray

the trust we build together. Think about it for a while if you

want."

Fox stopped his pacing and crossed his arms. He didn't

look at Petrillo but at the earth at his feet that was in danger

of splitting asunder.

Petrillo saw the fear settle in his patient's eyes before Fox

re-entered his silence, leaving him behind.

"Anything you want to tell me today?"

Petrillo and Mulder were in their Umpth session and thus far

but for very few, Mulder had spent those hours staring at the walls.

"You're not an idiot, Mulder. Your scores from grade school tell me

that much. But we can sit and stare at each other and think vile things

or we can start working to get you out of here. I get paid either way,

so, is there anything you want to say?" Petrillo waited.

Smoldering pupils but no voice.

"Tell you what, tomorrow, I'll bring in my Super-Play Station and-"

"FUCKED-UP!!"

The walls shook from the sound waves. Petrillo jumped, barely. Waited.

Mulder had leaped up and was pacing the room and every second or so he'd

scream another imperfection at the doctor, the dam thus bursting.

"UNSTABLE! VIOLENT! DESTRUCTIVE! SUICIDAL! And while we're at it:

DEMENTED-CRAZY-INSANE-SPOOKY-FUCKING-MULDER!"

Angry Mulder. Lots of things untouched down in there. Lots of

hurt that had to be found and looked at so Mulder could see it for

what it really was - the basic feeling of abandonment and

helplessness. Guilt, too, Petrillo thought. And fear. Human

things that were not so terrifying once they were exposed for

what they were: emotions.

Things they would examine together. Only Mulder did not yet

understand that he would no longer be punished for feeling them.

He would also have to unlearn the punishment of self.

"That's what they say you are. I want to hear what you think

you are. Do you think you're all these things? Really?"

Mulder sat back down, slouched like an adolescent, arms

crossed over his chest to erect a barrier between himself

and the doctor who asked scary questions no one else had,

never looking at the doctors eyes that could still disapprove

at any moment with a "tsk-tsk".

But he didn't answer.

"We have some hard work to do, Fox. We've spent most of this

session and others sitting across the room like two strangers in a

bar. Too bad we didn't have any beer. But, next session, I'm going

to ask you where it is you want to start, okay?"

That surprised his patient and it showed on his face for a fleeting

instant. Walburg must have had little success with this one.

Kurtzman! Petrillo had never been a supporter of the Sweet Talk

Method. Any "You're a fine fellow" stuff used on Mulder would have

failed miserably. And so many hospitals replete with so many textbook

procedures that had the patients doing little each day to help

themselves other than wiping their own asses.

How disappointing to find that so many trained professionals

still tiptoed around the sicknesses as if they knew their patients

were crazy and unable to make a decision on their own when that

was one of the first things to being human and sane: the freedom

of choice.

When Scully came for her after work visit, Mulder

screamed obscenities at her through clenched teeth

and stony eyes. She was not his friend. She was

his murderer. A betrayer and liar to boot. He screamed

until she left in shock.

He'd done it to complete the death. Not only was he dead

in body and mind, but now in heart as well and it was only

fitting. The living had no dialogue with him. He'd told

that doctor off good and proper too.

Leave me to burn up out of the sight of pitying eyes! he

screamed at them from his rift and ripped the scab from his

healing burn.

Even dying could be a shameful experience and was best

done alone.

Petrillo knew he was being punished for causing Fox to

speak. But he didn't bring it up when he visited his patient

in the Infirmary.

He sat beside the bed. Fox was in restraints but wide awake.

He hadn't been violent except to himself.

"Well. Well I left yesterday, It was with the hope you had

opened up, I didn't expect it to be the hole."

Fox kept his head turned away. He felt shame and it angered

him. For some reason he'd disappointed this doctor, not because

he'd shown by his self-mutilation that the doctor's methods were

futile, but because for some inexplicable reason, this doctor had

looked into him and not shrunk back in nausea. Petrillo wasn't

even showing disgust at his newly bandaged hole. He was sad

instead.

"I was kind of hoping we could talk a bit right now, if you'd

like. You know you are in some trouble, Fox? It's not impossible

that you'll be able to feel, equally, love for yourself as you do

hate at this moment. We have our work cut out for us. I'll see

you tomorrow."

He was next in line for access to Fox Mulder.

In an emergency.

Which this wasn't.

Mulder was kept isolated but he'd still have to

settle for access under watching eyes, Greenlawn

believed in closed-circuit television. But he was still

Director of the F.B.I. and if anyone had an argument

to make he would remind them of that.

Soon he was being escorted to Mulder's "room".

which was "nice-nice" for a cell with rubber walls

and a lovely sleeping mat.

Yesterday afternoon, Mulder had tried to take the

ward apart. Scully had gone to see him that afternoon.

Afterward, Mulder had had a session with Carl Petrillo.

He'd screamed a lot at Petrillo. A lot.

Somehow yesterday's mix of events had then

lead to Mulder's beating on the furniture.

Today, Skinner had talked to Petrillo after Scully had

come into work that morning looking like she'd had about

ten minutes sleep. She looked spent. Depressed.

Skinner managed to corner her later in the stairwell

and had solicited yesterday from her in addition

to some brimming eyes and a voice so sad it made

his heart ill.

Mulder didn't want to see her anymore. He'd told

her to go away and never come back. He'd yelled at

her and screamed abuse at her and told her she was

a liar and a cheat and not to be trusted.

Skinner wanted to kill him.

The door shut behind him and was locked, he stared

at Fox Mulder for the first time in many weeks.

Fox Mulder stared back. Defiant. Stood in place,

looking at Skinner, thin and rumpled and arrogantly

waiting. Not caring either.

"What the fuck is the matter with you?" Skinner

had not come to mince words, play by the rules

in the Book of Loon or rack up good guy points.

Mulder actually changed position at that. Fidgeted.

Skinner still had the ability to exert some authority

over Agent Du' Spooky. Good.

"I am sorry you're here, Mulder, but you're blaming

the wrong person by attacking Dana..."

Dana? Visions of a sweating Skinner all over Scully's

naked body, obtaining orgasm and pumping her secret

place full of himself, swam before Fox's eyes in red.

"It's none of your business," He spoke. One of few times

since the false dawn began. She's none of your business!

"so keep your goddamn hands off her!"

Skinner flew at Mulder as if from a catapult. He grabbed

shoulders and twisted his fists into the cloth, slamming

Mulder back against the wall.

"You fuck! What are you going to do? Destroy her

along with yourself you selfish son-of-a-bitch?"

Slammed him again. "You've been cut and raped and

beaten so you've been through all there is, huh? You've

seen it all?"

"I have." Strangely calm. "I have seen it all."

"Well, get passed it! Switch it around in your head, Mulder.

Pretend if you have to. Where the fuck this happened, who

did it, get passed it; it was a bad weekend with a biker gang,

it was too much booze, indigestion, I don't care. Just

fucking deal with it and leave this place because I won't have

you hurting that woman." Skinner ground the threat into

Mulder's face, one inch away. "Understand? Am I being

clear? Do you get it, Mulder?"

Her scent was on him. "Yeah. I get it. But you don't want me

to leave here."

Skinner let the fabric go. The impressions from his fists stayed.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You fucked her, didn't you?"

Skinner thought he'd come to set Mulder straight, to spur

him into getting himself better and getting out, if only to bring

some peace to Dana Scully. But at this moment he didn't give

a squat if Mulder died here. Whether or not he and Scully had

been intimate was immaterial, but how dare Mulder assume the

worst of her!

Skinner punched the wall beside Mulder's ear, hoping it

burst an eardrum. "You arrogant, self-assuming ass hole!

Scully and I are friends - that's because she has none. All

because of you, Mulder, she's fucking alone in the world

all because of you, you stupid dick! And she's been waiting

on your sorry ass for too long in my opinion. Fucking grow up!"

Skinner stepped back a pace, standing that close was risky

because he wanted to ram a fist into Mulder's face. He kept

the urge at bay but he wanted to. Oh, yes, he wanted to.

At the door, he turned back. "Pick up your life, Mulder.

Or stay here and weep, slice your wrists," He waved a hand

towards the bandage on Mulder's left forearm and the burn scar,

"burn yourself up, I don't give a shit. But do something. Just

get it done."

"Fox, I want Doctor Scully to attend some of your sessions."

Petrillo was not surprised to see Mulder shake his head no.

"You're afraid of her? Is that why? I heard about your little

explosion."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does if it means you won't get well. There's a reason why

you're trying to push her away. If you don't want to tell me,

that's fine, but it does mean it will be that much harder for

our work together. It means you'll be here that much longer,

trying to fix all that hurt inside you that you still won't

share."

"I told you I don't remember very much!"

"Then tell me what you do remember. Something. One thing,

even."

"I don't want.."

Petrillo waited as Fox's eyes flickered and closed. He was

remembering something. But his shame was stronger than his want

to speak and he was motionless as the battle waged, invisible.

"I won't tell Dana anything you don't want me to, Fox. For now,

we can keep the sessions closed. But I know she wants to share

in your recovery. She needs to understand too. She has some

healing of her own to do."

Something in what he said made Fox slump over. He breathed

heavily. Trembled as if in fever. "I don't want...I don't want...

to...hurt her anymore..."

But he was also terrified of being hurt and so he had tried to

destroy her. Name calling to keep her away because Petrillo didn't

doubt for a second that Mulder would never have, could never

have, struck Dana Scully.

Words had been his only weapon to deflect the offer of opening

up to her. Her and her love for him was a risk he was too

terrified to take and had used his continental tongue to annihilate

it.

It must have hurt her or she never would have cut her visit so

short. But Dana Scully was no fool and knew what lay behind the

fury in his words. She'd called Petrillo the next afternoon and

discussed it with him. He agreed with her. Told her his idea.

Petrillo wanted her in on the sessions.

She had agreed but not wholeheartedly. Not because of lack

of interest in Mulder's getting well, but worry that she would make

things worse. Petrillo had assured her she would not. Coddling

Fox would just be playing by his rules and that would accomplish

nothing except perhaps keeping him an inmate of Greenlawn for

a very long time.

"Do you think she hates you?"

"No." Liar! Believing she hated him was weak even though it was

true. But he had to at least pretend to have self-worth or the questions

would never stop.

"Then let her come. One session. I'm not certain why, Fox, but

I think it's important. Unless you want to tell me why she shouldn't?"

The doctor was showing his own weakness. Sharing a part of himself

that was flawed. He didn't know the reasons for everything. Therefore

he would share one of his own. One of those that counted the most.

Shaking at the possibility that the doctor might confirm his disgust

for the corpse in his visitors chair, "I can't..c-can't, "get one" ..unless

I h-hu-urt myself."

Petrillo watched Fox hang his head in shame at his revelation. Shaking like

he would fly apart at the joints, Fox said nothing more and Petrillo knew

he was waiting to see if this confession would damn him in his eyes.

Substantiate the ugliness that was Fox Mulder.

Petrillo felt his heart go out to this man who looked upon himself

as not a victim of terrible crimes but as the criminal who somehow

had perpetrated his own destruction. Because he hadn't been able to

save himself from the slaughter, he was guilty.

I have to uproot that! Petrillo declared silently. The confession

of attempts at masturbation came as no surprise, the confession itself

did. It explained the purple bruises on the thighs, the teeny spiders

of broken capillaries on his stomach flesh.

Pinching. To accomplish pain. To bring forth pleasure of a sort. The

only kind allotted to him during his incarceration in God-knew-what

under the mis-guidance of God-knew-who. Pain and punishment.

The confession, the first time for both, was also an extraordinary

sign of the healing light in Fox's mind. And of trust between patient

and doctor. How often do people even have the courage to reveal such

things to their priest?

"Before, after or during?"

Fox sucked in a huge breath. "It changes. U-usually ah-after."

Petrillo made a few notes. So, punishment for feeling horny? No.

Because the abuse got to be so intertwined with the sex that, though

the orgasm came, the high wouldn't until the pain did.

That's what sex-torture was all about. It brought a high - to both

parties - an endorphin rush and for a few seconds, Fox would have felt

better. Felt, even, a sense of power. Felt something.

Then the self-hatred would come and bring shame and humiliation. Things

are learned through experience, good and bad.

They can be un-learned. So if by chance the memory is triggered, the

physical reaction is not.

Physically, emotionally and mentally abused children learn to believe

they deserve it. Belief is a powerful force. It can sway nations.

Petrillo knew. He was a psychologist. He had traveled.

Abused children learn to escape into fantasy, learn to comfort

themselves often by performing the same abuses on themselves as the

abusers used on them. Familiarity can be comforting. Getting there first

is power and control.

Or they learn to hate self and the destruction of their own flesh (the

wounds often do not scab over) is a kind of agreement with the perpetrator

of the mental bashing or emotional terrorizing. Agreement is

peace-bringing. There is relaxation and an end to conflict by conceding

to a defeat.

Petrillo's mind went back to one girl he'd counseled who had grown up in a

family of six, experiencing tiny separate abuses that together formed a

poisoning whole of conflict and loneliness. One she wallowed in for ten

years before coming to him at the age of seventeen accompanied by the

frightened gaze of her tired looking mother.

A few months into therapy, he recalled the girl saying: "I wish I had a

robot hand. A six fingered, black robot hand." When he asked why, she'd

answered: "Because then I could see my malformation and even if it was

creepy, some people would envy it."

That girl's family ran out of money for her treatment. A year later, she

swallowed a whole bottle of her mother's sleeping pills and never woke up

again.

Failures like that didn't come around often. Thank god because he couldn't

have stayed in the work if they had. Even doctors need a pat on the back

now and then, with a success.

Fox was not so far gone as she had been, he didn't think. For one thing, the

man had survived abuses before, as a child, and gotten through it to succeed

in life to a certain extent. Good at his job. Had a share of love affairs

and friendships.

But Fox was deeply ashamed of his own weaknesses during his captivity and

the result was very nearly the same; terrible self-loathing. Hatred of self

was dangerous. It could make a person sad to death.

"I won't mention that, Fox. You know I don't lie to you. But I still want

Dana to join the sessions." It would cause upset, he knew but there was a

time for gentleness and a time for firmness and the time had come for the

latter.

Mulder was confrontational. So they would be as well. It was honest at least.

Fox had to learn to feel again. Something good with no punishment.

"I'm scared. I'm afraid of whu-what I might do."

Petrillo was very grave. Fox had shown he was capable of violence. Yet that

violence had been directed, focused on authority. Never the weak. No patients

had seen the bad side of Fox's fist of fury.

"Why? Can you give me reasons why you should feel that way? I'm not sure I

understand."

Fox shuddered like he was in fever. Something in him was crawling out. "I

think I...k-killed someone,...something..."

Leaving the semantics aside for the moment, "What was the reason? Do you

remember that?"

Shook his head no. He was trembling like a leaf, spasming in an intermittent

wind, hunched over to protect what was left of himself from his own

terrifying recollections.

"No. But I remember doing it..."

Petrillo wondered how "it" was "done".

"...it was," - something connected - "alien! Not human." He looked at

Petrillo with his, to him, enormous eureka.

Petrillo did not argue that part of it. Only asked:

"Nothing else?" This was a biggie. If it was true, if Fox had killed someone,

might there be evidence of it somewhere? A nameless corpse in a grave not so

old? A frozen cadaver in someone's morgue waiting to be identified? Or, if such

luck still existed, a body with a name that could explain a whole lot about

Mulder's past eight years in limbo. Something to bring to bear a light on the

dark matter of Fox's mind.

Petrillo's patient struggled for many minutes. If he could bring it forth, an

extra fact that they could confront...

Silence in which was heard Mulder's tired lungs. Then:

"It felt good."

Scully did not want to be there. She did not

want to see this man, her old partner, sitting

in silence not agknowledging her presence. Rarely

even looking her way.

Mulder was quietly furious, that much was

obvious, and directing that fury inwards. Thus

far he had not again screamed at his doctor, a

state Petrillo had disclosed to her just prior

to the session, that he wanted altered. Mulder

had yelled at Petrillo on a previous occassion,

the therapist had said, but had rarely spoken

since. A few words, here and there.

Petrillo hoped to change that today.

/He wants to provoke Mulder using me./

Scully thought.

Despite Petrillo's reassurances, she still

felt that it was a mistake, that her being here

would just make things worse. Mulder did not

want to see her.

Never again, he had said.

He had not 'said', he had yelled. After weeks of

punishing silence, Mulder had come at her with

a verbal attack designed to cut her to the quick.

"Skeptic!" That was the first and mildest of insults

he had used. He'd spat it out as some would spit

out "Moron!", not a hint of tease at all.

"Liar", "betrayer", "user", "traitor",...the list in

her mind rolled on.

"First Lady Benedict". That had been creative,

she'd thought.

"Iscariot whore", though, had topped it.

A few standard bar-room names questioning

her virtue had arrived next.

Crying, too. Whether used as a weapon or an

apology she didn't know, but he'd brought out

the heavy artillery there.

The next day, Walter had solicited the wonderful

story of her meeting with Mulder including a few

tears of her own.

When had she turned from Icey-Control Queen

to blubbering weakling?

She'd succumbed a great deal, lately, to the whims

of the men surrounding her, in a respectable way. She

was here, as an example, in Petrillo's counseling office,

ready to cooperate upon his request.

It was to help Mulder come out of his shell, Petrillo had

explained. She had told Petrillo about the outburst and

Petrillo had nodded, asking for details and then advising

her not to take it personally.

Yeah. Right.

How could this set-up make Mulder trust his doctor?

It certainly wouldn't improve her chances in

regaining his trust. The ultimate betrayal,

that's what she had committed, his face said it

whenever his look brushed passed her.

Two lies, actually, his eyes said. Broken promises

and banging the enemy.

Oh, yes. "Dick Skinner." Mulder'd said that too. In

response to her teary-eyed "Why are you so angry?",

Mulder had answered: "Go ask Dick Skinner."

Scully had no idea how Mulder had come to the conclusion

that she and Skinner were sexually involved. They weren't.

Almost but not.

But perhaps even a sane person would have a hard time

forgiving that.

Petrillo led her into the room already occupied

by the patient in question.

Mulder was leaning against the cross-barred

window, light at his back, arms crossed. He said

nothing as they entered and took their seats.

"Are you going to stand there and block my

light, Mulder, or are you going to join us?"

Petrillo queried. Scully thought that he may

as well have been asking the plant-stand,

for all the response he got.

Mulder remained a mute mannequin.

Petrillo stared for a few seconds, then opened

his notepad, preparing to write with a click

of his Bic.

"Well," He said directly to Scully. "let's

start with you."

/Me?/

"How would you describe Mulder's behavior?"

/Is he kidding? I'm suppose to talk about

him while he's standing right in the room??/

Petrillo had warned her that some of his methods

were unorthodox, but she wasn't prepared for

questions directed at her. Especially questions

about Mulder.

"Uh,..um, I would say he's...angry."

"Yes, clearly he is. I mean, with what or who is he

angry?"

Scully stared at the doctor in shock. How could

he ask her that? How could he expect her to answer?

Is she suppose to lie, pretend she doesn't know?

Play dead? That's what she wanted to do.

She could hear Mulder's breath catch at the question,

his respirations tight and fast. If she opened her

mouth, would he fly at her and slap her face?

Never had he hurt her in any way physically. Not even

a real harsh breath in her direction. But she was scared

now. Jesus, this was some unorthodox way to get a patient

talking! - goad him into a confrontation.

/Petrillo, you prick./

"Um,...I..I guess, he's angry with me." It was hard

to say it because it was true. "I think he thinks

I hurt him. I guess I did,...I just didn't realize

it at the time. I,...I...needed..."

Scully cautioned a small glance in Mulder's direction,

shocked to see him looking back.

But there was no anger on his face, just a terrible,

tired sadness.

"...I needed some,...um...comforting and Walter offered.

But nothing happened. I couldn't,..I couldn't go through.."

She stared to cry just a little.

Mulder and she had never, ever "done it" and here she

was feeling guilty for cheating on him except that she

hadn't. Not really. A couple of tears brimmed her

bottom lids but did not fall.

She was angry too, she realized, with Mulder.

With his presumptuous moral indignity and putting her

through this. Her anger was unjustified she knew but,

for all that, couldn't help but feel it anyway.

He deserved better than to be in here and she deserved

better than having been the one forced to sign the papers

committing him.

They both should have been spared this.

Life was unfair. It was aloof and self-serving and

completely, fucking, totally unfair!

"Haven't you ever been so lonely, Mulder, that you'd-"

She gasped as she realized what she was saying and to whom

she was saying it.

"Oh I,..I didn't mean that. I'm sorry... sorry." Scully told

the blanching face.

Petrillo decided to intercede. "You've done nothing wrong,

Doctor Scully. Mulder knows that too."

"I thought that I had destroyed him..." She whispered.

Petrillo, suddenly, was no more a part of the human

circumstances in that room as was the paint on

the wall. Scully was talking to Mulder and, for the first

time in five months, he was listening.

"...I thought I'd put him in another cage,..and," she

cried openly. No point in trying to keep tears back. They

were coming whether she willed them or not.

Turned to him without warning, "You have every right

to hate me, Mulder. But I didn't know what else to do. I

swear it. I just wanted you back, and happy and normal.

And,...and,...no scars." Her voice choked and she

quit, biting down on her tongue to stop the words that

came out too fast and too truthful.

"Why don't you go fuck yourself, Petrillo?"

Mulder words and they came straight from him.

"Ah, glad you could join us, Fox. It is nice when my

patients see fit to actually participate in their

therapy." Petrillo declared in mock surprise. "Now, how

about joining us for the rest?"

Mulder uncrossed his arms and circled the room,

suddenly looking as if he needed to leap out of his skin.

"You bastard." Mulder thrust a finger in Scully's

direction and spit at his therapist, "What the fuck do

you think you're doing asking her shit like that? You

have no right to treat her that way!"

"You're correct, I don't." Petrillo turned to Scully,

"I'm sorry, my question was uncalled for."

Scully wondered if Petrillo was quite sane. "That's

okay. I'm fine." Made an effort to stop the tears and

they cooperated.

"Why are you angry Fox? Or with who? We still need

the question answered. I'm going to ask it until

the Second Coming so why not get it over with?"

"You're a real piece of fucked-up work, Petrillo.

Where the hell did you get your degree? Off of a

cereal box?"

"Well, it wasn't Oxford. Calcutta, actually, and

your evading."

"Fuck you." Fox said politely with a tight-lipped

smile.

"No, the fuck's on you. You're stuck in this damn

place until you decide to deal with your rage and to do

that you have to deal with me. So fuck you."

In answer, Mulder kicked the plastic garbage can

across the room, making Scully jump. It had been empty

and so caused no mess he could feel better in.

Petrillo sighed audibly and heavily. "We could play

soccer." He suggested.

Scully's eyes followed as Mulder began pacing the small

office. Small circles, just like at the bus depot.

She sensed this must have been how he had spent hours

and days of those eight years of incarceration, pacing

in his cell or his room or the basement or the dungeon

or where ever in God's name he'd been kept.

A dusty road, a few last hours of freedom spent on

a hillside, then - poof - whole life blown away.

He was still trying to get it back.

Mulder's arms were folded but not entwined, as if in a

private hug in order to keep human and feel somewhat alive

and reasoning. To prevent thinking about anything other

than that he was no longer free and never would be again.

Or that he was someone's property to be used, mistreated

and then discarded into oblivion.

That, too, was how he must have existed for those years.

Now here he was in a doctor's office with people who

cared but there were bars on the windows.

The door was locked.

So he paced.

This is what she had done to him.

Her stomach rolled and rolled with the thought of it.

Scully wondered if Mulder's treatment had been as bad as

Lucy's experience; six years locked away in a damp,

black basement. A living collector's piece. A nothing.

Or worse.

She, Scully, would have cut her throat. Absolutely

with no debate.

Mulder stared speaking suddenly but quietly, as if to

himself.

"You want to know what those morons at Walburg wanted to

know? You won't believe me just like they didn't."

"Maybe not," Petrillo answered evenly, "but don't you

feel like screaming about it? I won't drop my chin in shock,

I promise you. Besides, maybe Dana will believe and even

if she doesn't, so what?"

"So what." Mulder repeated, not as a question. So what?

he said in his mind. So what about what happened. Abduction,

starvation, abuse, beatings, rapings, caged, nearly dead.

Squeezed dry of every shred of human will and desire until

nothing was left but a dried out skin. So fucking what?

There were hundreds of abductions every year, thousands of

people gone missing. How many were never returned? At least

his captors had done that.

Right considerate of them.

"I agree. So what. But you want to know all my dirty

secrets, so I'll tell you. Bryant and his Group Therapy! And

Kurtzman asking me how come I didn't try to escape. ""Why

Didn't you try to leave, Fox?"" Where does he think I was,

Tahiti?? You PhD's! You keep fucking asking me the same stupid

questions. I don't KNOW where I was! I don't KNOW!"

Petrillo made quick notes while his patient paced back

and forth, speaking in a succession of sentences that seemed

hardly related to one another, muttering to himself.

"Bet Kurtzman was never nearly been eaten alive by worm-lice.

Bet he's never stood in front of a window and knew that if he

stepped outside, he'd be turned inside-out."

Mulder shot the question at Petrillo. "Doesn't he think

I would have left if I could have? Cock sucker!"

Then spoke out the window. "Doesn't he think if I'd known,

I would have run for my life?"

Petrillo followed Mulder movements as they became more

hurried, as he circled tighter and tighter, and as his

narrative left the rhetorical for the direct.

Suddenly he yelled at the doctor. "I HAD to stay with her!

- that alien bitch! - no matter what she did. Fucking rapist!

Murdering cunt!-"

"-Mulder, try to take it easy." Petrillo soothed.

"Fuck easy! You asked. You've been hacking away at me

for weeks, Petrillo, and now you're gonna hear it all."

He looked at Scully. "And I know you're curious Scully."

Dilated pupils accused. ""Why is Mulder so fucked in the

head?" You've asked yourself. You're dying to know."

Scully did not look at him. Kept her eyes on the floor

as his venom found its mark. Of course, he was screaming

at her and only her. Not even at his old captors anymore,

or his new ones.

Just at her.

Because she had welcomed him home with love and then

locked him away, forcing him to live it all over again.

Betrayed him with a kiss.

"You want to know why I can't stand to be touched anymore?

You want to know why I can't sleep without being drugged

until I pass out? Why I wake up screaming and blind?" He

pounded the wall as he confessed each atrocity. "Why the food

in here makes me puke?! Why getting strapped down terrifies

me so bad I piss myself?! Why I can't get a hard-on unless I

twist my skin until it bruises?!" He faced her down.

"Is that the shit you want to hear about? You want to know

why? I'll tell you! Because that demon-whore stole eight years

of my life, that's why! Eight goddamn years, beating me and

fucking me too! I almost died there, Scully!..."

Scully nodded her head in acknowledgment of his accusations

that no one had saved him. No one had come looking. No one

had sent helicopters and trucks and infiltration teams armed

with hand-cannons ready to blow them all away - his kidnappers -

mow them full of holes, break his chains and take him home.

/But we tried, Mulder. God, how we tried to find you. I

tried./

"..I almost died but I was already dead - inside. I was

dead inside the whole time, every minute. The whole FUCKING

time."

He was crying now, face twisted in rage and pain. Tears

staining his face. Coursing down his neck, falling to the

floor, raining over all of them. Over all those who hadn't

saved him from his living hell. And who weren't saving

him now.

"I fucking hate her for what she did to me. Fuck her, that

stinking a-alien b-bitch! And fuck you, t-too, Scully, fuck

you for asking me! FUCK YOU!"

/Don't forget the rapes at Walburg, Mulder./

- Scully was accusing herself. Accepted it because it was

the truth -

/I put you there too, don't forget that./

"And you don't believe me! Well, who the fuck would!?"

Mulder stood in the corner by the window and curled his arms

over his head to block out the burning sun and it's light-truth.

"Why the fuck didn't I leave? Why did I stop fighting when

they stuck me full of holes?" His voice was growing smaller

but still spurt from between clenched teeth and lips pressed

together to keep the confessions from spilling out for all to scorn.

Filthy words like dung strained through from the slop bucket of his

soul. They forced their way from him like a hole in a dam, to

assault him and the two unblemished onlookers with all manner

of dirty violations. Of willing and unwilling obscenities that

would stick to him until he faded from the universe.

"W-why,...why did I let them hurt me? Why didn't I leave?

That's what you want to know! Why didn't I just leave or kill

myself?"

Scully was crying softly, face bowed so she saw only her

white, clasping knuckles.

"Bec-a-a-a-u-u-u-s-e," long drawn out defeat, "Because

anything - anything - was better. Okay? Anything was better

than being empty. I fucking let them do it all, take every

fucking thing I was, cut it all out of me - every last piece.

There was nothing else...nothing...just empty. I wanted to

die. I wanted to die so bad but..."

"But what, Mulder?" Petrillo asked. This was important.

Mulder's next words, he felt, would tell him Mulder's

thinking, not only at the time of these terrible thing's

occurrence, but now. Right now.

"Because I was afraid to die. I didn't want to,..to..

leave things...I wanted to come home. I hoped for it.

Jesus, I even prayed for it. I wanted to explain..."

His quiet sobs cut off his voice.

"Please, Fox, it's okay for you to say it." Petrillo

encouraged gently.

"I wanted to explain to Scully, to everyone. I wanted

to apologize. I needed...I wanted her to understand,

even if I'm ruined and garbage. But I don't know how, I

don't know how..."

Mulder'd ceased shouting. Just cried sick tears, bent

like a question mark, hugging his sides as if he were about

to fly apart. His guts twisted with the emptying of truths

here-to-fore unspoken. Let them think what they will. Let

her do as she pleases now.

Mulder had given her what she'd earned, taken his due revenge

for her deceit and exercising his right to accuse his newest

jailer. She had accepted the charges.

But then he'd said he was sorry for it. All of it. Everything

that had happened to them both for the last eight years.

Scully sat in shock from the unexpected forgiveness. She'd

been absolved of her crimes against him.

Mulder stayed that way, sobbing and trying not to, back

up against the warm pastel wall, holding his arms over his

abdomen as if every organ wanted to spill out before them

in proof of his deadness.

Scully kept as still as the chair she sat on, breathing

hard. Crying and accepting all he said for gospel. She

couldn't even go to him. Could not touch him in a comforting

embrace because it would be rejected and because he didn't

want her to see him like this. He must have cried hundreds

of times in his missing years. Must have yearned for the

comfort then.

Mulder had been abducted by aliens, (the physical evidence

gave some credence to it). He'd been taken by white slavers

to Asia. He'd been taken to Hell by Satan himself. Whatever.

Whatever he said was the truth.

Because it didn't matter.

Whether it had been Reticulans or Hell's Angels, Mulder'd

been stolen and vandalized, rifled through like a carton of

hand-me-downs. Taking what they'd wanted, a pile of worn,

bloody rags is all she'd gotten back.

Petrillo ended the session.

"He's pissed."

Scully stared at Petrillo, she couldn't believe the man's

penchant for stating the obvious. They spoke privately in his

business office.

"I'd say." she answered back.

"But now he's finally admitting it. Today is the first

time he has ever spoken about those missing eight years,

even if some aspects of it seem a little fanciful.

"You don't believe him?"

"It doesn't matter - whoever or whatever took him - the

point is he's feeling something. Believe it or not, that

raging outburst we just witnessed is the healthiest behavior

I've seen out of him since he arrived here."

"So what's next?"

"I need you to participate in as many sessions as you

can manage and that he will allow. To be honest, I'm not

really certain why your presence today helped him open up,

I just thought it might and I'm glad we tried it."

"What do you think, I mean really think, about Mulder's

claims of abduction?" Scully wanted to know this. She wanted

to know a professional man's opinion but she also wanted to

know how it felt to ask. How did it feel to be the one

questioning a disbeliever? To be in the spooky shoes as

it were?

"I think Fox is mixing his memories of cases he's

investigated. I think by the physical evidence you've shown

me, the things he endured for those eight years have

scarred him so deeply that he'll do anything to avoid

facing them. I am hopeful that your being here will help

us cut through those defenses."

"So you think he's lying?"

Petrillo started slightly at that. A bit puzzled at the

bluntness of her question, "N-no. No I wouldn't say lying.

He's glossing, painting a mental picture for himself of

what happened, one that he can handle; "Aliens did this."

Admitting that people did it...well, that's bottom line.

Bottom line might be unmanageable for him right now. But

in the end, as long as we get him through and he comes

out on the other side able to cope in a healthy way with the

challenges he's going to face when he gets out of here, I

don't care if he was abducted by aliens or the tooth fairy.

That he deals with it, and more importantly, that he accepts

he was not to blame."

Scully nodded. Mulder and self-blame...

...Petrillo had his work cut out for him.

"So you think he'll get better? Get out of here?"

"Yes. Fox is not crazy, Doctor Scully, he's in pain. He's

hurting so badly, that he can't function. He is suffering

from nothing more exotic than a nervous breakdown and

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Very serious, yes, but not

impossible."

Scully swallowed back the lump that had formed in her

throat. It was as much for the grief of Mulder enduring

the anguish of his present condition as for that Petrillo

had just handed her a hope that the anguish might end.

She debated what she was about to say. Decided that

Petrillo could think what he liked. There was every

possibility she was as right as he was.

"That's the first good news I've heard, Doctor Petrillo,

thank you. But you're wrong about the reason behind it

all. Mulder isn't mixing up anything. He isn't glossing

or even imagining it. He's telling the truth."

"The truth as far as he sees it you mean?"

"No. I mean the truth. As it occurred."

Petrillo reserved opinion but asked - "Why?"

"I may not be a psychologist but I know my partner. Even

in these extenuating circumstances, after all he's been

through, Mulder wouldn't make up things. Even to deceive

himself." Scully shook her head at the irony in her next

words. "And as hard as it is to believe, he neither

subscribes nor is prone to fancies. If he said he was

abducted by aliens and kept on another world for the

last eight years..."

Her words dropped to a whisper yet her profound belief

in them was shouted across Washington to reach the ears

of scoffers who for so many years had mocked her partner and,

by association, herself. Scully stared at Petrillo,

remembering the black oil infestation of newly dead human

beings, the faceless men, the burnings, the crisped bodies,

Mulder's insistence on the things he had seen in the Antarctic

and what they meant.

And then her words fell back to earth and found her again.

"...then I believe him."


	4. Chapter 4

TITLE: "FOCUS" (Sequel to "PhaHks")- Part IV/IV.

AUTHOR: GeeLady (GenieVB)

RATING: NC-17. MT/ScSkR/MScR/MOR/MAJOR ANGST!, language,

violence, sexually explicit scenes, Slash-violent rape, adult situations.

SPOILERS: "PhaHks" by GeeLady (GenieVB). Various X-Files

episodes.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I'd like to see him."

Scully made it passed all the doors and locks and meaty men

with keys to Mulder's private room. She was glad. There was a

camera but no one listening in and no other patients to curiously

stare.

Mulder was seated against the wall on his sleeping mat, elbows

resting on bent knees.

Scully recognized a patchwork quilt. It was her mothers hand. Mom

had sent it to him without telling her. Mulder probably didn't know who

it had come from but Scully was glad it was there. It brought color

to the drab pastels. A reminder, too, that he was in the thoughts

of others. People who cared. Scully smiled. For all her protestations of:

"Dear, suppose Fox doesn't get well?" her mom was a sucker for Fox

and always had been. She was also quite an actress.

"Hi." she greeted him and sat down on the other end of the mattress.

"Hi." his voice was soft. Hoarse from all the shouting of yesterday.

"I have to go back to work tomorrow. I'm behind so I won't be

seeing you for a few days."

He nodded.

"I wish you were coming with me."

He sucked breath, quickly. Bit his lip. Nodded.

Scully reached out her left hand. One finger, she dared touch him

with one finger lightly on his forearm.

He didn't flinch.

But crumpled. Crumpled forward and over to her and she brought his

head to her lap and held him there. "Me, too." He whispered.

"I want to re-emphasize the reason for the hypnosis.

We're trying to reach information that we know is there,

but things you're blocking out."

"I thought you disagreed with hypno-regression therapy?"

Scully asked the question because Doctor Petrillo had

previously indicated that he did not trust hypnosis at

the best of times, any kind of hypnosis. He and Mulder

had argued about it frequently during their sessions

together. But in this case, things had changed.

"I don't agree with trying to reached so-called "repressed

memories", the facts of False Memory Syndrome...well, Mulder

knows what I think about it...but in Mulder's case, we're

trying to access more details of what he does remember. Things

he has consciously told me of the night he disappeared."

Scully looked to her left where Mulder sat slouched forward

on the doctor's worn couch. "You've been remembering things?"

Mulder nodded once. "Sketchy, though, just images I can't make

much sense of."

"That's why I wanted you here today, Doctor Scully, I want you,

if you're willing, to join in on this part your partners therapy as well.

From here on in, in all his therapy, in fact, as long as Mulder is agreeable

to that. I believe your presence may be a calming influence. You will

be figuring in his long term recovery at any rate. If that's acceptable to

you, we can begin."

Scully had flushed a bit, warming at Doctor Petrillo's misuse

of the word "partner". They weren't, she and Mulder, partners

anymore. But was that hope inside her? Her heart was beating

a trifle faster. She had agreed to coming here today and future

sessions because she wanted that hope. Needed it. After so long,

maybe, just maybe, they could be joined again somehow.

Scully said:

"What made you agree to having me here?" To Mulder.

His face drained of it's color. "I...need to learn to trust..." Looked

at Petrillo who nodded encouragingly. "I have a problem with trust,

a big problem I guess. For lots of reasons. And...someone reminded

me that this isn't only my problem...it's been yours." He whispered so

softly Scully had to strain to hear him. "But I guess mostly trust."

She nodded. Smiled just enough to show she accepted, understood

and that she was here as requested willingly. Wanted to wrap her

arms around him. Stayed where she was.

Petrillo opened his notepad, reading his scribbles from a few

sessions back. "To start, Mulder, would you please tell Dana

what you have remembered so far, I mean about the dark place."

Scully felt ice form in her stomach. /"That cold, dark place."/. Where

Mulder would never end up. Another picture of Mulder unconscious on

an emergency room table, blood pouring from his shattered femur...

Scully forced her attention away from the stark images. They were still

there in living colour, whenever fear triggered them.

Mulder was speaking. "...but all I can remember is light and pain.

Being cold. I start throwing up if I try to go farther than that."

Mulder was talking to her. She zoned back into present events,

nodding as if she had heard everything he had just said.

"That's when you're awake. I'm hoping, through hypnosis, we'll

discover a few more details. Maybe it'll help with the investigation

on your disappearance. In any case, it is the area of your

subconscious memories that we've been unable to breach, I think it resists

because of the distress it causes. Okay? Everyone ready? Let's see

what we can find out." Petrillo said.

Scully, her attention fully focused now, "Excuse me, but you indicated

Mulder's had other sessions. May I ask what happened during those attempts,

I mean, at digging out these memories?"

Mulder answered, a little reluctantly at disclosing his continuing

difficulties. "Petrillo put me under once or twice before..."

Scully glanced at Petrillo, who held up four fingers.

"...then he'd ask me about the bright light, and, I guess, I,..I always

just start screaming and screaming."

"And other things." Petrillo added.

Mulder looked uncomfortable and was sweating a bit. The thought of

going under again making him anxious. "And he said I claw at the air,

and...lash out."

Scully shuddered, thankful she'd missed that particular sight. Yet

Petrillo had requested her here to lend Mulder strength. Even Petrillo

didn't know what might occur this time.

"Well, this time it may be no different but we could get lucky. I

had to bring Fox out of it during the previous attempts because it

became impossible for him to distance himself from it, even in the

hypnotic state."

"Do you remember any more of it now, though?" Scully asked.

"No, except for bits and pieces, images of monsters, feelings.

Stuff which no one believes." Mulder looked knowingly at Petrillo,

"Not sure now if I want to actually."

"Today we'll record it again. It may stimulate memories later, when

you're awake." Petrillo said.

"Bring on the crystal ball, doc." Mulder was getting restless.

Petrillo scooted his chair closer to Mulder and had his patient

relax back against the cushions. After a few moments of soothing

words, Mulder appeared to be under.

"Mulder, can you hear me?"

"Umm huh."

"I want you to remember the night you were on your way to your mother's

house. I want you to remain calm but tell me everything that happened,

in as much detail as you can. But I want you to remember that you are

an observer. An outside observer. You'll be quite safe. All right? Do

you understand me?"

"Uh huh." Scully watched Mulder's eyebrows scrunch together as memories

surfaced. "It's late, I'm driving. I feel stiff, I need to stretch."

The doctor frowned at the first person pronouns in Mulder's narrative.

"What are you doing, what's happening right now?" Petrillo asked him,

then scribbling a quick note to Scully and handing it to her.

She took it and read:

I HAVE NOT YET BEEN ABLE TO KEEP HIM DISTANT FROM THE EVENTS. LIKE

PREVIOUS SESSIONS, HE HAS ALREADY REVERTED TO FIRST PERSON.

"My back's sore. I'm gonna park off the road for a few minutes,...I'm

really tired..."

Petrillo and Scully waited but Mulder didn't continue.

"What are you doing Mulder?"

"Sitting on the grass."

"Please keep telling me everything that's happening, it's okay, you're

safe. Nothing is going to harm you."

"It's nice here," Scully assumed he was talking about the grass and not

Petrillo's office. "I like the breeze. I don't...don't get to do much

relaxing on the job. Always on the go. Really tired,..." Mulder's right

hand fumbled a bit at his side. "Scully,.."

Surprised, she stared. An impulse to go and sit beside him and hold his

hand struck her. But wherever it was he was, his hand relaxed.

"..Scully put a sandwich in my coat pocket." He sounded surprised. "That

was nice of her...I wonder...she does things sometimes, takes care of

me. I didn't think to bring anything. She's...she's...I'm such an idiot."

Scully closed her eyes, remembering a small gesture long forgotten. He'd

been in a hurry to leave work that evening and hadn't thought of eating, as

usual. It was nearly an six hour drive to Chilmark and he hadn't, she'd

guessed, planned on stopping on the way either. So she'd ducked out,

bought something at a nearby Cafeteria and slipped it into his coat pocket

before he left. A cellophane wrapped roast beef sandwich, heavy on the mayo.

Such a small thing. But it had surprised and pleased him and had turned his

thoughts to her while he sat at peace on a grassy September slope. Looking

up at the stars maybe.

In the horror of his disappearance, that small gesture of concern and affection

had been lost. In the hundreds of phone calls, police tape, evidence bags and the

call to his mother, that small gift had been wiped out of existence. She hadn't

even been present for the initial discovery of his abandoned car, the door wide

open, keys still in the ignition. Wallet, phone, gun, I.D. still tucked in the

glove compartment...

Mulder. Wiped out of existence.

She'd been at her godson's, the visit there being more to spend time with her

longtime friend than the kid who, since he'd turned sixteen, decided that visits

from his godmother were seriously uncool.

She bit back a moan of things lost. Willed her eyes to stay dry because what

was happening in Petrillo's office was in the here and now and important.

Suddenly Mulder tilted his head back all the way and screamed bloody murder.

Everything alive in the room jumped as his tenor strained to make them understand

what his shut eyes were seeing. It was a horrible, terrifying sound. What he

knew and saw was funneling through his voice box and pounding their brains

but giving no understanding. The scream of a angry horse would have offered

equal insight.

Oh, Christ. Scully's heart fluttered in her chest.

Seeing her wide eyed shock and fear for Mulder, Petrillo held up a palm to her.

"Mulder, can you hear me?"

Mulder shook his head back and forth. His whole body shook. Strangled

wheezes from trembling lips and a whimper.

"I want you, to relax, Fox. I want you to relax and remember that what's

happening cannot hurt you. Do you understand?"

"Y-y-e-e-s...but it can hurt. It does."

Petrillo frowned, shook his head. "Tell me what you see."

Mulder's eyes flew open. "LIGHT. HURTS! ITHURTS! ITFUCKINGHURTS. STOP IT,

STOP IT..." He moaned. Weakly, "..fuck...!" Tears soaked his lashes.

"Where is this light?"

"Everywhere. Oh fuck - HELP ME!" The chords in his neck looked strained to

the point of snapping. "...hurts so bad..." He groaned, swallowed, calmed. Yet

he shook, wide-eyed, not seeing the room or them. Present and not present,

experiencing things to which they had no access.

"Where are you now?" Petrillo wanted to take advantage of this unexpected

turn. He had never gotten this far with his client before.

"I don't know. God - oh God, I'm blind."

Petrillo scribbled another note to Scully:

ANY PHYSICAL EVIDENCE HE WAS IN SOME KIND OF EXPLOSION OR SIMILAR

TRAUMA?

She shook her head in the negative.

Petrillo continued. "Try to stay calm, Fox. You're safe, you're still

with us. Everything's going to be just fine. Nothing's going to hurt

you-"

"-Like FUCK! Where am I, What the hell is going on?? I can't SEE!"

Petrillo shook his head in awe at Scully. "Do you hear anything?"

he asked Mulder.

"Yeah. Weird...weird noises, I don't know...breathing? Grunts. Like,...

like...I..I don't know." His nose wrinkled up. "Smells bad." His chest

rose and fell more quickly. "Really bad. Hard to breath..."

"Take it easy now. You're safe, you can breath just fine. The air

is fresh, you're very safe. What else can you tell me?"

"Humming."

"Humming? Is it a voice or something else?"

"No, no voice...machine, far away." Mulder started moaning. He appeared

to be in pain, jerking his head left to right and back again. His respirations

deep and fast. Too fast.

"Get me the fuck out of here! I'm,...I'm..." He started wiping at his shirt

and pants. Jerky clutching movements, groaning and crying, his face twisting

up with some private disgust.

"What? Mulder, what is it? Tell me." Petrillo encouraged but kept his voice

gentle.

"I'm...c-c-covered in slime. It smells - I'm, I'm drowning. God - I'm going

to -" Mulder spit up a few tablespoons of Petrillo's decafe', soaking his shirt

in a mix of coffee, skim milk, sugar and bile.

"Oh, my god." Scully commented aloud. She scooped up the tissue box and

dabbed at Mulder's shirt and mouth with a handful of Scotties.

Petrillo quietly went and cranked open his office window a few inches to

dispel the odor.

Mulder had not awakened.

"Was it the smell, Mulder? Is that why you had to vomit?" Petrillo gently

asked.

"Jesus...I'm covered in it. Things...my own,...my own...we're all covered. I

want out of here...I want out of here...please,...please..."

Petrillo pushed a little, not wanting to waste this little bit of progress.

"Covered in what? Do you hear anything else? Can you tell me any more?"

He also wanted to distract Mulder from the panic he could see building

in his patients posture and gestures.

"Shit. Bile, like Tooms. All over...everything...my...piss...puke...I can't

help it..." A trickle of sour fluid dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Scully

dabbed and settled back again on the other side of the couch, trying to get away

from the images in her mind formed from his words. Cruel, nightmare pictures

that would not fade as she willed.

Mulder screamed again, this time a sharp, high yelp. He began clawing the air.

Scully watched, horrified, as his hands raked at nothing. Dug at nothing.

"Let me OUUUUUUUUUUUT!" He flailed and tried to get up. Unable to balance,

Mulder fell back.

Petrillo was there in a half second, ready to hold him down if necessary.

He was speaking calmly but firmly. "Mulder. You're okay. Everything's fine."

Loudly so Mulder would hear it over his own cries. "I want you to calm

down. I want you to relax."

Some of it must have gotten through. Mulder's motions slowed and then stopped.

Petrillo puffed out his cheeks in relief, exchanging glances with Scully.

Scully was braced with elbow on a knee and a hand covering her mouth, eyes

shut to what she'd just witnessed.

Jesus.

She felt like heaving.

Jesus Christ.

Petrillo was speaking soothing, calming words to Mulder, readying to bring him

out of it.

"Okay, Fox. You're perfectly relaxed and calm. You're safe and feel fine.

When I count to three, I want you to wake up. Okay? I want you to open your

eyes on the count of three...One. Two. Three."

Mulder opened his eyes and squinted. Blinked. Leaned forward and rubbed them.

"Wow. I'm really beat." He commented. Looked at Scully. She returned it with

a soft smile. Mulder pointedly addressed Petrillo. "So? Did we get anywhere?"

Petrillo kept his voice level, giving no hint that Mulder had just scared

both of them shit less. "Farther than before. Quite a bit farther, but it's hard

to know if it'll help us discover what happened."

"What's that mean?"

"I have it on tape. We'll all listen to it, including you, at our next session

and see if it'll trigger any waking memories. Maybe we can pick it apart and find

out what it means."

Mulder spread his hands and nodded. To Scully, "I'm dying for some food."

She nodded, thinking more along the lines of a vacation.

Petrillo walked them the few feet to his office door. "I think you're being here,

Doctor Scully, was a great help."

"I'm glad." Was all she could think of to say to the fright session she'd just

been party to.

"Petrillo thinks you'll be ready to come home in a few weeks."

Mulder gulped his coffee back, forcing it passed the gag. "He

said that?"

He seemed more shocked by her good news than glad. "Well, weekends

at first. Didn't he tell you?" Scully sipped her decaffeinated

coffee. After his one sip, Mulder had pushed his aside and opted

for something more stomach-settling second beverage ginger-ale.

"Must have slipped his mind." Mulder was, in fact, thrilled by

the notion of getting out of Greenlawn and back to some sort of

actual "life". But the reality also terrified him. At first,

he'd hated the walls and the locks and the doctors with their

note-pads on clipboards that they carried like badges of sanity

and authority. Then he had grown used to them and soon began

counting on them for the only stability he could turn to in life

while his mind played footsie with nuts.

"I don't know how ready I am or will be." He offered her. Shared

the fear like Petrillo counseled.

Scully made her own offering. "You won't be alone. You'll be with

me." She sipped her coffee. Made it a joke. "I mean, living with me

might be just as bad as here but - hey - better food, movie disks,..."

Mulder smiled. It felt good to do it and mean it. "I'm glad to be

coming home, Scully. I'm glad I have one to come to." His plastic

cup was empty. "But there's no way I can ever repay you for what

you've done..."

Scully cut it short before the conversation ended up a comparison

of deeds. "Come home and we'll call it even."

Mulder nodded. But the fear was there at the idea of survival on

the outside. He'd have to stand up and prove himself to the laughing

world and the thought made him shiver.

Petrillo waited. It was best to let the man cry. Lots

of crying was okay. More than okay, it was overdue. His

patient had a lot to cry about.

And the doctor had waited, too, for the anger. That had come,

along with the first tears, a few weeks ago. Finally.

Petrillo was certain that neither would have surfaced had

Dana Scully not agreed to participate in those first crucial

sessions of Mulder's therapy. Now she came or stayed away

whenever Mulder requested, some things he didn't want her

to see or hear. When Scully made purely social visits, she

and Mulder would sit in the Atrium or in the Cafeteria and

talk, about what Petrillo didn't know. The therapy maybe. Her

work...but he knew for those times, Mulder was together and

controlled and could even pretend at cheerfulness. He could

fake her out.

But in here, in this room, Mulder was vulnerable, naked,

exposed. Frightened. Out of control. In here, he was a victim

again.

"Do you still question who or what did these things to you?"

Mulder was distraught. He was sobbing. Rubbing his eyes and

temples, trying to figure it all out. He suffered under almost-

memories that refused him rest. Nothing had been concluded,

exactly, but at least he was trying.

"I don't know anymore. I just fucking don't know." Tried to

get full breaths. "I'm so tired of all this goddamn shit. Son

of a bitch, I hate this."

"Hate what? The therapy?"

"Yeah. No. The control crap. Genuflecting bull shit. Analysis

and talking, talking and all the fucking crying. I'm so goddamn

tired I can't think straight anymore. How am I suppose to know

what did it? Or who? I can't even be sure I'm real."

"It won't be that way for much longer, you know. Mulder? You're

getting very much better even if it seems like the things you've

come to trust...your memories, the truth of what happened as you

see it... seem to be crumbling around you. You are closer to being

well that you realize, to getting out of here, and I don't want

you to give up yet."

"Why?"

Petrillo knew that was coming. Mulder wanted, always he wanted,

more than just loose assurances based on opinion. "Because I'm

writing a paper on you and I'd like a good closure."

Mulder laughed, a little. "You're more fucked up than me, Petrillo.

I always knew that."

"Don't let it get around."

"I asked you why."

"Because you're fighting the darkness. You're trying to discover

the truth, you want all the answers. Pretty good, that desire for

light and understanding. All the skills of your profession are

still there. You have a strong survival instinct, Mulder, despite

yourself."

"That's not very scientific. Don't your colleagues sometimes wonder

at your methods?"

"They don't wonder when my patients walk out of here as sane as

they are. My methods work. So? Back to the wheel?"

Mulder nodded.

"Quite a while back, you mention someone. You said "Bitch." Do you

want to tell me more about her? I'm assuming a "her" here."

Petrillo was treading new and very tender ground. Gaping pits

with this. But it was time to move on from the generalities

he'd allowed Mulder to get cosy in and shoot for the specifics now.

First times. Lots of those these last few weeks and more to come.

Lots more.

Mulder looked like he was about to get sick. Petrillo had learned to

keep his wastepaper basket within easy reach. (He'd exchanged his wicker

one for a heavy duty plastic one soon after their first chat together).

Mulder didn't get sick, but his hands shook in his lap as he linked

fingers together. "U-u-m-m. Yeah. The female. The subject, um, yeah, it

was a...she b-broke my arm once."

Whew. Petrillo knew how hard just saying that much had been. "She

must have been extremely strong."

"In-human." Mulder corrected.

Petrillo let it pass. "Other injuries, other things she did?"

Mulder nodded, white as a sheet, trembling.

"Do you want to talk about this more tomorrow? A little at a

time?"

Shaking his head 'no', Mulder took a deep breath. "I don't know

why I can't get passed what she did to me. I don't know why it's

taking so long."

Petrillo poured them both a coffee from his pot. Decaffeinated.

Placed Mulder's on the coffee table and sat back down. "It's only

been eight months, Fox. you know it doesn't happen that fast."

"But I'm a psychologist. I know the steps, I know the route. It

should be different for me." He was crying again, a little, at his

failure to excel at getting well.

Petrillo sighed. He'd encountered this before. Always, those

in the profession believed somehow that they should be exempt

from the processes they themselves knew were necessary. "Even

a dentist, no matter how good he is, can't perform his own root

canal." Lousy analogy, Petrillo.

"I'm 46 years old."

Back to that. "And you'll be forty-seven by next year. Age will not

hinder you from getting well and it plays no part in the healing

process. Only time does. And hard work"

"My life's half over. More than half, I don't know what I'm

going to do with-" He doubled over, holding his breath, trying

not to cry. Needing to so badly as always.

"Mulder. You're angry that eight years of your life were taken

from you. And make no mistake, they were taken. You can't get

them back. But the rest of your good life does not have to be

spent in here. If we work together, you will leave here and

begin again. Now before you make 'beginning again' into something

hopeless, let me tell you that it's no shame." Sighed again. "Even

though I know you don't believe that." Not yet anyway. "And the only

ones who should be feeling shame are those who did this to you. You

didn't choose this. But you don't have to live with it like this."

"It seems impossible. Muh-my soul is gone. I don't f-feel..

..hu-u-m-man eh-eh-anymore."

"But you are. You are. Soon, you'll believe it."

"She raped me."

Petrillo went motionless. Careful not to get excited. "Yes." The

medical reports indicated that. Rape and a whole lot more.

"I let her."

Oh boy. "We've discussed this, Fox. You could not have prevented

what she did."

Mulder's face crumpled to a point of pain like Petrillo had hit

the com-fucking-pletely wrong button. "Later..." Mulder could only

get one word out with each lung-full.

The guy was really trying. He really wanted to get this one out.

.."later".. suck .."I".. gasp .."l-let..her-r." ..inhale..

"fuck me.." wheeze..."I"..snort.."asked"..sob.."f-f-for..

it." Mulder was squeezing his guts and sucking air like a beached

tuna. He was punishing himself for not being super-human.

Whew.

Rape survivor guilt. Misplaced, cockeyed, fucked-up guilt.

Let a human get beaten to within an inch of their life and there

are no guilty feelings. No self-blaming cry of "my fault, my fault!"

But let that same human get punched and slapped around by a parent

who says "I love you" first or a rapist who makes you get off and

the shame begins. Sometimes flourishing into self-hatred. Sometimes

into self-murder. So difficult to convince a survivor that the

bodies natural physical response to manipulation is as out of their

control as their beating heart is.

Perhaps, later on in his captive years, Mulder had chosen the

path of least resistance. Maybe to survive the loneliness or the

hopelessness. Maybe because it was the only form of tenderness

open to him. But not in the beginning. He hadn't asked for the

violent invasions of his body and certainly not the rapes at

Walburg.

Mulder blamed himself. But a human being can't control or

defeat all circumstance, even though most still learn from youth on

that one "should" be able to resist or conquer almost anything.

Technology and cell phones and success ruled the world, but people

were still just simple, breakable creatures. Fallible. There was

an innocence in that little truth we have forgotten, Petrillo

thought.

"I think this is going to kill me. I'm afraid I'm insane. She sees it."

Double whew. If he was afraid of going insane, it's a good chance

he wasn't or, at worst, not too crazy to get well.

Mulder thought he should have died. Deserved death. "I wish I

could say some words to make you believe you were an innocent in

what happened to you, and that you are merely human with only so

much power at your disposal, but I don't have those words. It's

something you'll just have to learn. For now accept it at face

value: You were not to blame. You will get well. We'll take

the rest from there."

"But it's a mistake."

Petrillo wasn't sure he understood. "What is?"

"All of this. I shouldn't be here."

"You deserve to get well. You are worthy. Scully believes

it, why can't you?" It was the wrong time for this conversation,

nothing Petrillo said could scale those self-incriminating

walls. Mulder didn't believe it.

"No. It doesn't matter, don't you see. Nothing matters."

Petrillo watched his patient quietly weep. Something had

changed in the tears. They weren't the 'I'm-so-fucked-up-

and-useless-and-worthless, I-can't-stand-myself-tears'

anymore. Mulder was grieving over something fresh. This was

new, raw sadness. Doctor Scully had been mentioned. That

might be it. Okay.

"I think I hear an "I'm not worth it" in there someplace. Is

that what you think?"

When Mulder didn't answer, he remembered something. Doctor

Scully's, on a recent visit, had been accompanied by a man. A stern,

balding individual. Petrillo had not met him, only seen him, but his

impression had been that this fellow would feel at home giving

orders to the president. What was the name he had heard? Skinner.

Skinner? As in director Skinner of the F.B.I.? If this was a

love triangle, he suddenly understood Mulder's feelings of not

measuring up.

"Do you think she thinks that?"

Silence except for sniffles.

"What do you think of Mister Skinner?"

Mulder's countenance slumped into resignation, defeat having

occurred without a battle even being waged.

In a small voice. "He's a good man." Microscopic whisper. "He'll

treat her right, the way she deserves."

Thus the nerdy genius hath been cast aside. Petrillo knew Mulder

hadn't even spoken to her about his fear that she was lost to him.

Petrillo was sure Doctor Scully had no idea Mulder still felt this way.

"And yet, she has done everything in her power to get you the care

you need. She visits almost daily-"

"She feels sorry for me."

So do you! It was a good sign. Some self-pity there. Some ego.

Nothing hopeless about Mulder at all.

"Have you asked her?" Knowing Fox would not have the courage

to take such a step at this stage. Fear of rejection had a strong

hold on him. Rejection meant worthlessness. Still... "You think

she's abandoned you, so what harm is there in asking to see if

that really is the case?" Was he afraid his fears would be confirmed?

Or that they be disproved? Love was a big responsibility. It meant

answering to another. Proving oneself. Being unselfish, forgiving.

It meant laughing and planning for a future. It was a lot of hard

work, sometimes with rewards at first unseen. It could be scary

as hell.

Mulder stared at the floor. Petrillo could almost see the

thoughts in his head battling for position.

After a moment, Petrillo suggested, "Would you like her to sit

in again next session? Maybe your fear of rejection is something

we need to discuss together? Would that be all right?"

Mulder actually asking this woman: Do you love me? was, Petrillo

knew, beyond Mulder's strength. He was too vulnerable. He was cracked

in a hundred places, the wrong pressure here, a tap there and pieces

could begin falling away...

Frightened beyond speech, Fox nodded..

"I don't...don't know where I am."

Petrillo had Mulder under his guiding voice once more

and Scully wondered for the second time whether her being

there was of any use. But one thing was certain, she

wanted to be in on Mulder's treatment; as often as possible;

what-ever it was; whoever it was; how ever it went.

Leaving him under the care of strangers (though she had to

admit, Petrillo was good), without her there to regularly

observe at least was no longer an option.

"It's okay, Fox. You're okay, you're all right. You're very

safe and nothing is going to harm you..." Petrillo droned.

He'd gotten Mulder to remember farther back this time.

That is, if the hypnosis could be trusted, Scully thought.

Whether or not it could, Mulder was trying to share his

nightmare.

"I'm so cold." Mulder shivered. "I can't see anything."

Petrillo was making quick notes and watching his client

carefully. "What about the noises? Last time, you told us

about noises. Can you describe them?"

"Uh...yeah...breathing,...I think. Someone's breathing,..

and...and strange grunts. Something's near me...something

big!" He arms twitched. "I can't see it. Some kind of

animal. I can smell it!" Mulder shook his head back and forth

as if to rid his nostrils of something rank.

Scully sat on the couch next to but not touching Mulder. She

held coffee in her hand. There were daisies in a vase on the

coffee table.

"I want you to relax, Fox. I want you to tell us about the

noises but I want you to remember that you're quite safe and

that nothing can harm you." Petrillo soothed.

"O-oh-k-kay." His eyes were closed but moved back and forth as

if experiencing REM sleep. "It's moving away." Mulder stiffened,

alert. "I smell something else. Strange. Sweet. Really strong

this time but I can't see where it comes from...dark. Oh."

Petrillo and Scully exchanged looks. This was new. "Describe

the smell." Petrillo encouraged.

"Same, sweet,..gross. Can't get away from it. Surrounded by it.

I hate that smell, hate it...sickening...makes me throw up."

Before the action suited the words as at the previous

session, Petrillo fired another question, "Have you smelled

it before?"

"Few times. It's happened before. Phuhg!.." He snorted out his

nose as if it were clogging with the dream stink.

Petrillo frowned, lost. "Where does it happen?"

"Here. All the time...so tired."

"Stay with me, Fox. Okay? Does the smell remind you of

anything?"

"Ummm,.."

They were losing him.

"...uh,..yeah, I guess so. Kind of like sugar, um..syrup.

Sorta like th-th-aaaaa..." Mulder let his head droop to one side and

he didn't respond to Petrillo's attempts to re-awaken him.

Petrillo raised his eyebrows to Scully and gestured for them

to move to his tiny adjacent business office. It was safe to

leave the patient where he was for the time being.

"Well." Petrillo could think of nothing else to say right

off.

Scully sat in the padded chair opposite his desk. "That was

...strange."

He puzzled a bit. "Hmm. I hope he doesn't go to sleep

every time we come to that corner or we'll never get anywhere.

But as for making sense of what we're hearing? - I don't know

at this point what we're hearing."

"So you think the hypnosis is going nowhere?"

"Well, no, I wouldn't say that. I'm just not sure it's going

to the truth. What happened to him is always going to be somewhat

a matter of conjecture because he remembers so little in the

waking state. We're getting information but how accurate is it?,

I guess is my point."

"I don't know what to suggest, I'm a pathologist. I can offer

you this: I know Mulder. He doesn't make things up. He has a genius

mind and the ability to make I suppose you could say incredible

connections - leaps of logic if you will - but he has no imagination

what-so-ever."

Petrillo thought for a moment. "If I had to guess, I'd say he was

kept confined in a very dark, dirty basement somewhere with animals

yet had connections with people." At Scully's amused look, "With some

very, very disturbed people. But he insists he lived on another world.

He seems to hold to that from his recollections, while awake anyway."

"Well. We know what he said. And we know he thinks we think he's

crazy for saying it never mind believing it."

"Scars." Petrillo recited aloud. "Broken bones. Torture. Rape.

Assorted assaults. Yet given medical aid, food, water. Conversation.

Does any of it make sense?" Petrillo shrugged his shoulders. "Slave

trade? Kept for work, sex, boredom, abuse..?"

Scully shuddered at the list as it always made her and wondered too.

Some criteria fit, some didn't. Like, if he'd been anywhere with the

technology to keep him alive after the damage those wounds must have

caused...Mulder would have found a way to contact them. If he could

have, he would have. But had he wanted to?

Scully sighed. The little circle of questions had been spinning

in her mind for months. And they were no closer to any real answer

than when the ride began. "Have you been playing the sessions back

to him?"

Petrillo nodded. "But he tends to blank out. He gets...stony.

Wooden. And he doesn't talk for a whole day. It scares him pretty

badly."

Scully stood. "Um, will he wake up...?"

Petrillo nodded and followed her through the door to the

"client" office. Mulder was asleep but woke when Scully touched

his shoulder. He blinked a few times. "Whoops. Did I go ape-shit

Doc?"

Petrillo smiled. "No. You just fell asleep."

Mulder nervously rubbed his palms on his knees. "So, we listen

back to it?" Obviously not wanting to.

Petrillo looked at his clients face. Fox's eyes were on Scully

though he was trying to pretend they were on the far wall. "No.

Tomorrow if that's okay. I'm really backed up in paperwork."

Mulder jumped up, pleased with his reprieve and the bit of freedom

time Petrillo was granting. Scully took Mulder's hand and lead him

down to the cafeteria. They had a precious hour before she had to

go.

They took their drinks to the small atrium on the top floor and

sat looking up at the sky. This was a place for patients advanced

in their therapy and teetering on the brink of re-entry into

civilization. Scully held onto that like a life preserver.

Mulder pointed out star systems to her, his knowledge extensive.

Clearly he'd been reading up. They lay reclined on lawn chairs

that had seen better days. Scully let her head loll a bit to her

right so she could watch him. Availed herself of that joy as often

as possible.

He had managed to stay gorgeous. Then, men usually got better

looking as they aged. She used to think Mulder was cute. Now he

made her breathless. But it was a reaction to something deeper

than what was skin-deep. Crush on the new partner syndrome was a

decade gone.

A stronger disease had replaced it.

She must have straightened the magazines on the coffee

table a dozen times. She must have wiped the counter

a hundred.

But he was coming home for his first weekend and she

wanted everything perfect. No, not perfect. Comfortable

and homey. Relaxed. She wanted him to feel welcome

and relaxed.

She was still nervous and had bitten her nails off. A quick

file and paint job and they looked passable.

The door buzzer sounded and her heart sped up. He was here.

She pressed the 'Talk': "Who is it?"

"E.T.."

The shit. Scully smiled just like that rainy night fifteen years

ago and let him in.

Mulder carried an overnight bag, setting it down just inside

the door. He wore the black knit sweater and blue jeans she'd

bought him for his first Christmas back (one year, two months and

four days ago). His first non-institute issued clothes which

they had refused to let him wear. The nurse who had taken

the package had said "we'll deliver it", placed it on the counter

and gone back to her novel. Scully wondered if Mulder had

actually seen the clothes until this year.

Scully wanted the hesitation she saw in him dealt with

immediately and hugged him close and long with an extra

squeeze just before releasing him.

"Hi." He said and bent down to kiss her cheek.

They ate in, watched a half hour comedy series called

Don't Mind Me about, ironically enough, the goofy goings

on in a mental institute. The Moral Majority's sensitivity

meter must have dropped, Mulder thought. He'd noticed that,

in 2008, almost nothing was off-limits on Satellite.

Later, he seemed quiet and though assuring her he was fine,

she wondered about the downcast eyes.

It took him all evening to broach a subject he must have been

wanting to talk about but until now was either unwilling or

fearful of.

"Scully,...tell me...about my mother." He looked at her now.

Oh.

She had expected the subject: She and Him and Here Together.

This other one could be a plank-walk.

"What do you want to know?" There was quite a bit.

"Well, anything you can tell me, I mean after I was gone. Did

she ever talk about me?"

Scully settled into the couch, legs tucked up. Mulder sat leaning

against the back of it, legs stretched out and crossed. He didn't

seem to mind hard surfaces for hours at a time at all.

"Sometimes. I went to see her a few times, especially after..

you were gone. I kept in contact with her sister as well. Because

Teena, well, she was alone all the time."

"Aunt Julia?"

"Yes."

"Mom shouldn't have had to be alone like that. She shouldn't

have had to go through that." He said.

"She was never angry with you. She knew, Mulder, that if

you could have contacted her, you would have."

He nodded but it was an unconvinced nod. "Sam never came

back."

Scully couldn't decide if that was a question or a statement

and decided not to go there. "She, your mom, told me a few

stories about you, you little hellion."

"Did she ever tell you about the time I broke her Royal

Albert china?"

Glad he was following her lead onto lighter things, "No, but

I'd like to hear what kind of Mulder-proofing I ought to be

doing around here."

Mulder craned his neck and looked back and up at her. She got

excellent view of gorgeous throat. "Scully, I was six."

"How did you break them?"

"Eight dinner plates. Four cups, two saucers..."

Scully rolled her eyes. Naturally the guy remembered exactly

how many and what. Couldn't remember what happened for the

last eight years but remembered this.

CTMDS. Chronic Traumatic Memory Dysfunction Syndrome is

what Petrillo had called it, then had added with his usual humor:

/"It means when really bad shit happens, he blocks it out almost

totally. Photographic memory isn't always an asset and I think

that high functioning brain can't handle it. Usually when bad

things happen, we tend to remember them more vividly than good

things because they impact so many more cognitive areas and he

does as well, of course. But when it's bad to the degree of

driving one crazy, he has a defense that steps in to prevent that.

It's not the first time for him and good thing too I would say."

A self-depreciating quirk twisted his lip. "We took this brand new

theory last year at the Johannesburg Conference. It sounds good."/

"..the pattern was Buttercup. I was climbing on a chair to

get at the china cabinet. I wasn't interested in the dishes, I

just wanted to see what she'd hidden in that red, dragon-

painted wooden box she had tucked in behind. I dislodged

one of the shelves and crash! I tried to glue them all back

together but she must have known. I did a terrible job with

the glue. Got it all over myself and the plates and the rug."

"What kind of glue?"

"Super-Glue hadn't been invented yet - Elmer's."

Scully laughed at that, throwing back her head. "Oh, I'm pretty

sure she knew."

"She was a good mother to me. Most of the time. I was

a troublemaker back then."

Back then??

He hadn't talked about his father at all. But then perhaps

Mulder had laid those demons to rest.

"What was in the box?"

"Huh?"

"What was in the wooden box?"

"I never found out. I was so scared I just grabbed the glue

and started piecing them and stacking them back together.

They all stuck to one another so I ended up with one, big,

thick, heavy, really sticky Buttercup Royal Albert plate."

Scully laughed. "You brat."

"I was just a kid. She never said anything anyway but after

that I was too scared to go in the china cabinet again. Never

did learn what she kept in that damn box."

A lock of your hair and love from her heart, Scully mused.

It was easy to love one's child. Teena may have been prim and

distant during Fox's adulthood but, so Scully had learned from

repeated visits with Teena Mulder where the woman would

unashamedly pour out all the things she'd remembered and

loved about him and all the grief over losing him a mother can

hold, she had dearly loved her dark haired, hazel eyed little

boy.

Mulder suddenly asked very quietly. "How did she die?"

Scully took a breath. Kept it basically informative but left

out the most distressing aspects. It was difficult to read the

back of his head, what to tell and what no to tell him. "She

had another stroke. That's not unusual." she quickly added

when she saw his sideways glance and the pain in it. "They

often go that way. One and then a second and sometimes a

third. This one affected the autonomic functions; breathing; heart.

They had her on full support for a few weeks. But your aunt decided

to disconnect life support..." She laid a reassuring hand on his

shoulder. "It only took a few minutes. She didn't suffer."

Saw him nod. He rubbed fingers over his eyes, they came away

wet.

She leaned down and kissed his cheek, meaning to only give

a little peck to let him know it was fine. It was perfectly okay to

cry here. In front of her. About anything he had to.

But Mulder's hand moved up to hold her head there, very gently,

in place against his cheek. Then he turned and found her mouth

and kissed it. He shifted around, kissed her once more. His lips

rested briefly on cheek, ear, hair, neck. Back to cheek. All the

time he was thanking her. He was whispering "thank-you, thank-you,

Scully. Thank-you, thank-you.." in her ear.

He didn't specify what it was he was thankful for but pulled

himself up to the couch and lay on top of her, molding to her and

touching her unreservedly, kissing her with a kind of desperate

intensity.

As she did him.

"I don't think it really matters so much the way Fox remembers

things as long as he is facing this life, now. Here and now it

is vital how he perceives things, how he feels and reacts. He lost

his ability to cope. Prolonged, brutal incarceration has had that

effect on others before now."

Scully spoke to Petrillo via her cell while she drove the fifty

minutes home. It was routine now that, even as she fired her engine

and exited Greenlawn Recovery Center's parking lot, her fingers would

be dialing Petrillo's pre-programmed private number and they would

discuss Mulder: the session, what he said, what he did, what it meant.

"When can he come home for good?"

She heard Petrillo sigh at the other end. "Yes, I know. I ask

the same question every damn week."

"Not yet. I don't recommend it. But it's close, Doctor Scully. He's

come so far but there's a way to go still. I know you are aware of it

as well as I but we can't forget what it is that brought him here.

Mulder was abused, brutally for eight years. Locked away although it's

still unclear where and who and even why,...treated in all the worst

ways it is possible for one human to treat another, and springing back

from that just isn't so simple as one years therapy and then - TA-DAH! -

well again. This will be with him for the rest of his life."

Panic attacks. Post Traumatic Stress disorder. Incurable, both of

them. But treatable. Hernia. Pills. Ulcer. Pills. Coping skills. "He's

trying so hard."

"I know and partly because he wants to please you. He is starting to

live again. A good, strong life for him is just ahead with all its

liberties , restrictions and complications. We want to be certain

he is armored to deal with all that it encompasses. It'll be a daily

fight, even to make decisions, never mind find some kind of focus,

goals, career..."

Scully recognized these things. "Do you think Mulder will try

to go after those who did this to him? I mean, has he mentioned

anything like that to you?"

Petrillo sounded concerned. "No. No, he hasn't. Is that the

impression he is giving you?"

"No. But Mulder is...Mulder. He might."

"Unless he knows where to look, it would be futile."

Scully almost laughed. Like Samantha was futile. Like all the rest

of the quest was futile, as it had appeared to everyone but Mulder.

The Quest, the Quest!

You make request,

that I should rest

my questing quest?

I think you jest!

I shall go East.

I shall go West.

Before I rest

my questing Quest!

Scully had never been much of a poet, (that had been Melissa's talent),

but the silly rhyme had popped into her mind and she couldn't get rid of

it.

"Anyway," Petrillo said, "I would discourage that, I think. He has

enough to do just getting back on track now. We may never discover who did

this to him or why and he may never experience complete memory recovery.

But the power to make or break his own life is in his hands once more. Do

you know what he said to me when I mentioned that?"

"What?"

"He said "I hate it when shrinks make sense." When I asked him why,

he answered: "Because it means now I have to try. I have no excuses not

to."

A few weeks later, Mulder had a birthday and for a present Petrillo had

repainted the number on the wall to read "47". He told Mulder it was a

reminder that he had reached that age without being nuts.

Scully bought him his own color television for his room, satellite included.

He looked peaceful.

It was the brink of paradise, having him there, in her

bed.

Home.

To touch him now all she had to do was move her arm

across six inches of sheet. His warmth was the last best

thing at the close of each day and the first of each sunrise.

Even if it was only weekends.

Watching him sleep - she did a lot of that lately - his movements

and breathing, was a reward. Or a miracle. A wonderful gift to

her from God; one to be thankful for. However the bestowal of

him she would treasure and protect the gift as long as Destiny

allowed.

Scrumptious looking gift. Scully lightly ran her hand over the

long line of his back and side, memorizing each muscle, each dip

and rise from shoulder to the slight curve between rib-cage and hip.

His bones were fleshed over again.

Mulder stirred and turned to face her. "Hi." he mumbled still

in half sleep.

"Morning."

"Been awake long?"

"No. I'm used to waking up early." It was a half lie. The other reason

for her early awakening that day was a seriously erotic dream in which

a certain former F.B.I. man figured prominently.

Day dreams too, all centering on a big, big bed and a naked, willing

Mulder. He was of course willing now but just not able. It was not a

subject they spoke much about. Petrillo had explained it to her

behind Mulder's back. She was worried about touching him in that

way. Was he all right now? Would he allow her to touch him?

Petrillo had assured her it was not the touching, but it was his fear

of that brand of intimacy. He wasn't ready, it was still messed up

in his head. He still had terrors.

But some nights she talked him into bed and as much as she wanted

to hold him down and ride him like a spring bunny, she settled for

kissing and hugging, or tangling herself up in those long legs of his

and offering certain portions of the local man-life a specific caress or two.

Those times would stave off the cavewoman cravings for another

week. But no rise from "Basement Mulder" yet and Upstairs Mulder

was horribly self conscious about it. She tread very, very carefully

around the subject.

Scully draped one shapely leg over his warmth, planting little

kisses on his chest. She liked his back too, it was long and lean

and muscled. She was a back woman. Today it was his chest though.

She didn't even notice the scars anymore.

"It's Sunday, Scully, go back to sleep." His eyes remained closed.

She wanted to see them. "I'd rather go out for breakfast."

"Can't we have it here?"

"We always eat here."

"Yeah but I was hoping..to spend the day with you...alone."

"Sounds promising. Are you sure? We could try out that

new pancake place...all you can eat..."

"Crowds. Kids. Old people with dentures..." He grimaced.

"Alone with me aaaaalll day...huh?" Scully liked the possibilities of it.

That made him smile and he cracked an eye. "Behave."

"I am woman, Mulder, hear me roar."

His eyes closed again. "Sleep, then food, then talk."

Scully snuggled and kissed him some more, pleased at his

response. "And then?"

"T.V."

Covering his head with a pillow, she beat her palm on it then

jumped out of bed before he could snatch her back.

Her long T-Shirt twisted around her and rumpled, he caught sight

of nude fanny before she threw on a housecoat and headed

to the kitchen. "I'm making breakfast then. Now. So if you're

inclined to eat this morning, get that attractive ass out here."

Her voice was lilting and happy.

It made him deliriously content. "Should have known taking

up with an Irish woman would cause a war." He called after.

In front of a movie neither payed much attention to, he settled

in, comfortable leaning against the couch, his legs stretched

out as usual. The comfortable silence settled in as well and he was

enjoying it. He'd done entirely too much talking these past

few months. His tongue was tired. His brain was tired. Sitting

in front of a television that wasn't controlled by someone in

a white, starched uniform was heaven. They only allowed him

access to his own T.V. at Greenlawn between certain hours.

It wasn't a recent film they were watching. "Y2K." A movie

about millennium destruction and world anarchy. Well, 2000

had come and gone (while he'd been gone) and nothing

had ended. Some things had definitely gotten worse. Economics

of course, when did they ever improve? Nation still rose against

nation and kingdom against kingdom...no alien invasions to

speak of.

But then he was behind in his current events.

Saddam still undefeated in first place for Prize Ass hole

award.

Ireland finally had enough arguing with the Crown and signed

a tenuous peace treaty that thus far was holding. The New Freedom

IRA was still a problem but, then, when weren't they?

Economic strength was up in some countries and down in others.

People were still having babies and paying mortgages.

A woman was in the White House and he'd slid a few good

jokes Scully's way about that.

But no alien colonists.

Yet.

He may be older, the X-Files may be closed but that didn't mean

all that he'd seen and learned "back then" had been false.

Scully had left the work behind. That work.

He'd been thinking about it and, since being granted weekend

leaves, been thinking about it more and more. The problem was

he was no longer an Agent of the F.B.I. In fact, he had nowhere

to lay his briefcase. And he still had a month or two of sessions

with Petrillo to get through...

But things were still unanswered. Antarctic. How had "Their"

work progressed? Would he ever be able to pick up the threads and

unravel the tapestry of the concealed lies...

Mulder shook his head a bit. His feet were becoming impatient.

First things first.

"What's wrong?" Scully asked. She was seated behind him, her

knees on either side of his shoulders. He loved it when she did

that.

"Hmm?" She'd caught him staring at the coffee table instead of

the Television. "Oh, nothing, I guess I was just thinking..."

Scully shifted closer and put her arms around his neck, resting

her chin on his shoulder. He was thinking more and more, she knew.

And about what, she could make an educated guess: his future.

Not just their future but his. Job, career, purpose, life. All

those big questions he would soon have to explore and decide

on. Asked anyway. "What about?"

Same old Mulder. He tried to minimize his obvious pensiveness.

"Just, you know, when these sessions are over...things. "What next?""

...job..."

Scully ran fingers over chest hair. "What about applying to the

Bureau again,...your past record..."

Mulder turned sideways to look at her. He did that when he

was serious, looked her in the eye when he wanted her to listen

and understand that what he said was crucial. Also when he

suspected she wouldn't like what he had to say. "No one's

going to hire me here, Scully."

Gently - oh! - so gently said. He did not want those words to hurt.

"In two months or so," He explained still gently, still with that

pillow voice that wanted to keep her safe and happy, "Petrillo

figures I'll be upgraded to outpatient status."

"That's excellent." No one will hire me here, Scully. No. One.

Will. Hire. Me. Here.

"It means I'll need a place to stay for a while. Full time..."

He had no money of his own at all. Well, his mother's house was

still sitting there, paid for. It was his now but it was getting older

and the taxes on it had to be payed. He had less than no money.

Scully'd been paying all the bills for a long time and that was

unacceptable to him. That was going to change.

"With me, I hope." She said quickly. Even now, he asked permission,

she thought. Even yet, he harbored doubts.

"Are you sure? Twenty-four and seven?"

Doubts about her feelings for him. Doubts about his worth.

"Don't you want to?"

"Yeah, I do. I just don't want to be a burden or put you out

more than I already have."

She sighed. This was an old battle and she was tired of it.

"Put me out? I love having you here, Mulder. I look forward

to coming home every day, knowing you'll be here."

She saw him gulp. For some reason, it had been the wrong

answer.

"I'll be putting out resume's as soon as possible. Don't want

to be a bum forever."

She felt a tightness in her chest. He hadn't acknowledged her

last comment. "You're not a bum. You've just had bad luck. A

lot of it." She smiled at herself. Yeah. A Supertanker of oily-shit-

bad-luck. "If not the Bureau, what Agencies?"

"No one in D.C. would take me on, Scully." He said-almost-whispered.

The tight ache in her chest grew and was joined by a lump in her

throat that no amount of swallowing would dislodge. But she listened

as a good friend does.

"All they'd have to do is check where I've been for the last fourteen

months, the years prior to that, the work I - we - did before that.

Mulder the UFO chaser who claims abduction by said aliens and

ends up institutionalized...Spooky really is crazy. If you didn't know

me, Scully, wouldn't you think the same?"

She didn't answer because she didn't want to speak the truth:

Very probably, yes she would.

No one would hire a man with a record like that. He would find no

position of trust or responsibility no matter how sane now. I.Q.,

experience, eagerness, none of those would matter to an employer

with a reputation to protect. Find a new career outside law

enforcement? Mulder was pushing fifty. "So you're not going to try

here?'

"I've applied. I'm not...holding my breath."

She let one finger idly touch his left nipple. She felt it's

response to her gentle manipulations and let her hand explore

lower with tiny soft circles. Heard his breath catch. "Scully..."

She realized how hot and bothered she'd become. It was the thought

of him going away. That a day was coming where he would have

to leave. She would go with him, she decided. Chief Forensic

Pathologist? Her position and status? Let the dead dissect their dead.

"I'll be going with you."

He turned all the way around at that and took her hands. "No."

And before she had a chance to ask, he explained his reasons.

"Scully, I want this - us - to work. I have no right to ask you

this but I need some time to prove to myself that I can make it

on my own, out there, again." He pulled her off the couch

and into an embrace, wrapped himself around her and touched

her, letting his hands and arms land where they may. "I want

this, Scully..."

She relished the feel of his hands on her.

"...but not yet. I...can't. I'm sorry but it has to be right..."

Scully thought: How ironic. The old pervert I know and love

wants sex to be something right and pure. Beautiful and truthful

even.

Mulder was speaking softly into her ear. It was such a sexy

turn-on, she was afraid she might lose the control he was

advocating and try mounting him right there on the living room

rug.

"...because of what happened to me. For a long time, sex was

a substitute for everything, like a replacement for feeling and

even thinking." He pulled away and looked her in the eye. "I

don't want you to be a substitute."

Boy Scout all the way.

She wanted him so badly. Not just the sex, but the mind, the

emotions, the soul, everything labeled Fox Mulder that she

could get her hands and heart around. The whole damn thing!

And he was going to be leaving without her. She could feel the

redness appear in her eyes and knew it broke his heart to

see it. "Scully. I'm sorry. But I'm not even out of the hospital

yet. I don't have a job. I need those things...to establish a

future of some kind, one where I want you to be. Us, together."

He was so earnest. He just didn't clue that all she wanted out of

the future was him in the present. Right now. But she understood

his need for a certain amount of independance. Some things didn't

change, Fox Mulder still had trouble relying on anyone. "I don't

want that future if it won't include you."

Scully choked back the tears, kept them from falling by pure

will. God, he was such a gift. "Mulder, that's what I want too. You

never know though, something might turn up here." Please God.

He smiled indulgently, kissed her on the hand. Moved to her lips.

Scully felt a rush of desire from head to toe. A look, a laugh,

a touch did it. Amazing man. He'd wrapped up his heart

in tissue paper and handed it to her with trembling hands...

She would carry it with her because that gesture had proved

once and for all that he was no longer afraid of her.

He trusted her to love him no matter what.

One day Mulder came home from his forays into the job market

and after turning the key in the lock and locating her in the bedroom,

Scully found herself on the receiving end of a long, very intimate

hug. He seemed to want to enclose her in himself so they would

become a single being.

It set off warning signals and she braced herself.

"I found a job, Scully." He announced.

A rush went through her. Excitment and worry. "What job? Where?"

"In Washington. Kind of a psychologist/crime-victim/counselling/

consultant."

Her heart soared. "That's terrific." Big hope,"The Bureau?" Tiny hope,

"VCU?" Any hope would do.

"Scully,.." Mulder spoke softly and hope dived to dash itself on

the rocks. "Washington State. Seattle, Washington."

Scully wanted to say something supportive and meaningful but

words failed her. Her heart was spinning and wobbling on a pin-

point.

"Two weeks Monday." He finished. He had not ended the

embrace. He was rooted like an ancient tree to support

her in whatever way she choose to react.

Mulder was a steady strength she pulled herself into,

wrapping her arms around his waist, holding on for dear life.

He was being so strong for her. For so long he'd wanted to,

he still thought he had a debt to repay.

"I'm proud of you." She whispered. (I don't want you to go!)

"I tried to find something here, Scully."

"I know." The other side of the continent?

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay." All the way across five thousand lonely miles.

Nine hours by jet. Six days by train. Seconds by phone but phone

calls? Not acceptable. Not enough -not nearly enough!

"Are you okay?"

Two weeks and he would be gone. She cried then. Oh, those

gentle words. Always those three damn gentle words of his did

their magic and most especially when she was trying her hardest

not break down.

"No, I'm not. I'm not." Her mascara would stain this shirt too.

Another dry-cleaning bill.

"How was your weekend?" Petrillo asked.

"Real nice." Fox said, remembering. "It was

really nice."

Petrillo nodded, took a gulp his wife's spicy,

milky tea she'd packed in a thermos for him that

morning. It was pungent and sweet and hit the spot

better than coffee.

"Well, shall we begin?"

Mulder nodded.

"Any dreams?"

"No. But I was a good boy and took all my pills."

"Yes. I told Doctor Scully to watch and make sure

of that."

"Figured as much."

"What about your emotional state over the weekend.

How did that go? Any anxiety?"

"Always but not so bad this time. We talked a lot."

"About what?"

"What I'm going to do when I finally get out of here."

"What do you want to do?"

He had a job but didn't want to mention it to Petrillo.

He had an irrational fear that Petrillo would not approve.

Petrillo still had some clout over his patient status and could

veto any move out of state if he thought it a risk to his recovery.

But this job was his ticket back, he felt, and no one was going to

screw it up.

"To stop being a financial burden on Scully. To get a job

somewhere where I can use what I know, make some kind of

difference."

"You mentioned thinking about going into private practice

as a psychologist for UFO abductees. Private counseling,

hypnosis and related therapies. Are you still considering

it?"

Fox pursed his lips. "I've put out feelers for that and other

things. I'm not in a position to be choosey."

Petrillo thought Fox looked uncomfortable "I know you still

don't believe me. No one ever did."

"You'll have to forgive a skeptical society. But just

because there's no tangible proof doesn't mean abductions

don't happen. Regarding your own claim, you have nothing

to prove to me as a member of that society. But you do have

to work with me a little longer so you can get well."

"You keep contradicting yourself, Doc'."

"How's that?"

"That I can believe what I want to about what

happened to me - which is that I was abducted by

aliens and held against my will for eight years,

that I have nothing to prove to you or anyone. But,

getting well, doesn't that mean giving up that belief?

Don't you think I'm delusional for believing it?"

Petrillo leaned back in his chair. It creaked. "I'll

tell you what I think: I think something terrible happened

to you. I think you're trying to recover. You're getting

well means working hard as hell with me - which you have

been doing - to handle these panic attacks and violent,

diassociative episodes..."

"Could you drop the shrink-speak for a second and tell

me what you really think? Am I delusional to believe I was

abducted?"

"No. You're not delusional. I think your mind has coped

the best way it can with the trauma of those years."

"Doc! A straight answer. Do you think I was abducted?"

"Personally, no I don't think that. But it doesn't

matter."

"It doesn't? You're going to let me walk out of this

place believing absolutely in something that people think is

nuts?"

"Hindu's believe in Destiny and reincarnation. Are all

those millions of people crazy? Is it crazy to chant to

Buddha? Believe in the good will of one's ancestors? Is

it nuts to worship and dedicate one's life to an invisible

Yahweh? Is it insane to worship Mother Earth and consider

even the rocks living, feeling creatures? Is the whole world

demented, Fox?"

Mulder smiled ironically. "Point made."

"I'm a doctor - trained in the sciences - and the silliest

assertion science continues to make is that miraculous things

are impossible because they are miraculous! I have every belief

in the possibility of things beyond this realm, things outside

the physical, because as a physical creature tied to this realm

there is no way in hell I can ever prove otherwise."

"A philosopher too, huh?"

"It's not so much philosophy as common sense. You see. What's

important is how you see this life. That you're grounded in

reality and have the power to take or reject what it has to

offer. To make rational choices as a free moral agent. Your

choices will never be just one or the other. You can walk out

of here if you wish believing you were on an alien space craft

or sipping holy wine with the Queen of Heaven. As long as it's a

choice from a healthy man, a mentally sound one. I'm just here

to help you re-acquire the skills to survive - to live. In the end,

the decision what to accept is still yours to make."

"What if the panic attacks still happen?"

"They might. PTSD is not a curable condition, but it is

a treatable one. You will learn to live with it and live with it

out there with your fine lady and not in here with an ugly, old

man."

"You're methods are not very conventional, Doc'."

"But they work."

"How long have you been doing this?"

"After getting my degree I left India when I was twenty-seven.

My father, by the way was Italian and worked in Calcutta, where

he met and married my mother, hence the Italian name. I'm sixty-

one years old now. I transferred from place to place in Europe and

then here until I found a niche where I could be the most help. I think

I found it."

"Lucky for me."

"Maybe Destiny." Petrillo smiled.

Petrillo's encouraging words helped ease Scully's heartache somewhat.

"Twelve months of treatment here - believe me - it's miraculous how

far he's come in that time. He has a resilience I've not often seen in

my years. He's a healer and a fighter."

"I'm very proud of him. So you think he's...okay? He's not going back

to work too soon?"

"Uh,.." Over the phone, Petrillo's voice seemed a trifle confused. "That's

really impossible to say for sure. I can say that if I thought he was not at

all ready, that it was shaky, then I would tell him. But the decision is

ultimately up to him now that he's on his own cognisance. Uh, he's got

a job then?"

"Yes."

"I'll have to speak to him about some out-patient follow-up if he's

willing, that was fast." He wasn't surprised, really, that Mulder hadn't

told him.

Tell me about it. Scully hung up the phone. She would not cry or be

selfish about this. Would not hurt him.

Two people traveled to Ian Moss's residence in Boston,

Minnesota.

One got there an hour before the other (around 9 P.M.)

in a 1984 Ford Tempo in need of a tune-up. He parked around

the corner because of the engine's rumble and because he

didn't want the car noticed in particular though the street

out front was lined on both sides with vehicles. Visitor

number 1 walked down the back alley to the row of stacked

condos, his destination. But instead of going in, he waited

and watched the presently darkened windows.

He would do this same routine, parking his car in different

spots each time and varying where he stood to watch,

as long as it took until he knew the comings and goings

of dwelling number 3 on the fifth floor. Who was at home

and when and the times they arrived and left until he

learned them. Even if it took days.

But as luck would have it, only forty-five minutes after

standing in the chilly night air, the lights went on in what

he figured was the bedroom. Soon, the lights behind the

blinds on the balcony doors went on.

The cars and trucks belonging to the residents of the

middle class housing were all parked out back with

numbers painted on concrete blocks for each.

Another half hour went by and a big man emerged from

the back door accompanied by the little man whom he

himself had traveled a long way to keep company with.

Smaller man kissed bigger man and bigger man, in the

uniform of Boston's finest, walked to his unmarked police car,

got in and started it, back out of his stall and drove away down

the alley.

Visitor number 1 watched as Ian Moss retreated into the

building, letting the door swing shut behind him.

He quickly sprinted to the door before it could swing to

and caught it, then crept up the flight of carpeted

stairs after his intended.

Ian placed the key in the deadbolt and turned the lock.

Before he heard the telltale click of the bolt sliding back,

he heard another click.

A switchblade at his throat and a voice in his ear muffled

the bolt's sound.

"Hi, Ian. Long time no see."

Ian felt panic surge through him at Ross's angry baritone.

"What do you want?"

"Shut the fuck up and get your ass inside is what I want,

you snitching homo."

Ian had no doubts Ross meant to kill him but he had no recourse

in an argument with a knife. A teeny tingle at his throat and the

feel of wet underneath it proved Ross meant business.

Ross shoved him inside and kicked the door shut. He couldn't

take his hands off Ian to turn the bolt but it didn't matter, what

he had to do wouldn't take long.

Ian wondered how many minutes had gone by - it seemed an

eternity - and glanced at the clock hanging in the hallway.

The door of number 3 shut just as a traveler number 2 pulled

up in a cab out front.

"I'm expecting someone." Ian said, surprised at the steadiness

of his voice.

"You're a lying faggot."

"No, I'm not. I swear, I'm expecting him any second now."

"Oh, yeah? Who?"

"Fox Mulder."

Ross paused. "Who is that, your little queer for the night? Does

the cop know you're two-timing his ass? Hmmm?"

Ian swallowed. Jesus, Ross didn't even know who he was talking

about. But how often does a rapist even really look at the face of

his victim or take the time to learn their name?

Ross dragged Ian into the living room. "I got a network, faggot.

Eyes on the back of my head. You think I wouldn't find out who

turned me in?"

Ian struggled to remain calm or to at least appear to. Ross (and his

type) loved to terrorize before cutting or raping or whatever it was

he'd previously been convicted of. Volumes had been written on

the subject. Lot's of time to read on night shift.

How the prick Ross had ever landed in Community Sentence work,

he didn't know. Yes he did. Understaffed justice system. Overcrowded

jails.

"You scared, homo'? Why? I thought all you little boys liked it up

the ass? You spent enough time with Candy man, you and he

must have got it on now and then..."

Ian felt Ross's arm go tighter around his throat with each sentence

spoken, the knife pressed almost home. Ross was atoms from

cutting him a second mouth.

"...well, I'm not here to teach you a lesson like that pathetic loon

I fucked the balls off of, I'm here to tag me a fag. How'd ya' like to

be famous for a day, Ian? How'd you like to make the morning papers?

You and your homo-cop-bum-buddy?"

Ian saw the shadow before Ross did and as soon as he felt that first

violent jerk and heard the fleshy thud and Ross's hand go limp, he

twisted free. But the dive for freedom wasn't as crucial as it might

have been.

Because he turned and watched as Fox Mulder proceeded to take things

in hand and beat Ross to within a half inch of his life.

Stunned, Ian observed the floor show as the Fox he remembered and

a Fox he had never seen plant his foot into Ross's gut, and then his

crotch, again and again.

Fox questioned the perpetrator with each swing of his polished David

Collier size 12's.

"Dump your maggot slime into me, will you? You piece of shit! You

fuck!" Fox switched from crotch to face. "You goddamn raping scum-shit!

How would you like to eat your own nose, you son-of-a-bitch!!"

Suddenly Fox stopped, breathing hard as Ross snorted red and green

all over the carpet.

Ian was fascinated at the transformation from murderous hate to calm

exterior as Fox took out his cellular and dialed 911, speaking into

it for a few moments. Then he actually took the time to bend down and

see if Ross was still breathing and getting enough oxygen to keep alive

until the EMT's arrived. Ian suspected that, if Ross were to then die

en-route to Emergency, Fox would care less.

Then Fox was at his side with a hanky, pressing it over the small cut

on his throat. Ian took the opportunity to look at his former patient.

Hair shiny and combed. Black suit, expensive and hung on his healthy

- very healthy - looking body like silk on marble. This was not the

Fox he remembered. Not even close.

This man was tall, sane, powerful and in total control of the

situation.

He was gorgeous.

"Are you all right?"

It was the first time he had ever heard Fox's voice and possibly the

sexiest sound he had ever laid ears on. He supposed it had some-

thing to do with the fact that Fox had just saved his life.

"I could kiss you." Ian rattled, his throat hurting from Ross's

unremitting tight hold on it.

Fox smiled, showing a row of white if slightly uneven teeth. Still sexy.

"Well, we'll just skip that part, 'kay?"

Ian nodded and got to his feet. Sirens could be heard getting closer.

"Is there someone you want me to call?" Fox asked as Ian sat on

the sofa, a bit shocky. "Yeah. Precinct 22. Ask For Sargent Gary

Bihlhaltz -Jesus."

"What?"

"This is gonna be hard on him. Worse than for me."

"Why?"

"Because he's in the closet."

Fox nodded, understood. Greater men had been ruined for less. "If

you need me for anything, character witness, whatever. Call my number

or Scully's - you still have hers?"

Ian nodded. Fox gave him one of his new cards. "I'm staying in

this hotel tonight," he took the card back and wrote the hotel name

on the back, "hopefully, the initial red tape for this won't keep me

in Boston beyond tomorrow. I'm returning to D.C. and then moving to

Seattle. I don't know for how long."

Ian wondered what might have happened between him and his

lady/doctor/friend that he was leaving the East coast.

Fox put his hands on his hips. Ian tried not to stare up at his

rescuer. "Listen, I requested to come and see you because I wanted...

I mean you saved my life."

Ian flushed. He couldn't help it.

"You saved me. At Walburg..." it was still hard to even say the

name of the place. "If it hadn't been for you, I might still be in

there along with this pile of manure." Fox nodded once in the direction

of the bloody pulp on the floor. There would be an investigation of this

incident, statements, court, he'd have to fly back and testify on Ian's

behalf and his own.

"You saved mine tonight." Ian reminded him. "I'd call it even, wouldn't

you?" He glanced at the human bruise called Ross. "I didn't see you kick

a man who was already down. Ross came at you with the knife, too, didn't

he?"

Fox nodded, smiling just once.

He remembered almost nothing except instant reaction. It came back to

him though, as they waited for the officials.

Fox had just walked in the building as another resident was walking

out, no need to buzz the door. And when he'd heard the distinct waver

of Ross's monster voice, he'd just acted without thinking. Suddenly

he was F.B.I. again and all the old skills and training fell into place.

Ross went down almost without any effort on his part. But then another

part of himself surfaced.

He saw his shoe bury itself in various parts of Ross, especially the hated

face. He'd wanted that fat, mushy pig face to cave in and come out the back

of his head. Along the way, the face turned into a creature nightmares are

made of and instead of pink skin, a boney headed, sharp-toothed demon ready

to tear him in half emerged and his foot had struck harder.

Then he had stopped. Just like that. He wanted it to end this time. In

justice. Witnesses. Proof! No more time behind bars and locks and

spectacled doctors looking at him wondering why.

The authorities would deal with Ross. Less satisfying on a personal

level but better for his own health in the long run.

It had taken enormous self-control not to kill that man.

"Gotta a joke for you." Mulder said as they sat

and ate sandwiches and drank coffee.

"Okay."

"This guy gets a flat tire and pulls over to the

side of the highway right next to a mental

institute-"

"Mulder-"

"-Just wait, Scully, I said it was a joke, now you've

ruined the build-up."

"Sorry."

"-he pulls up next to the nut house. He removes the

hub cap and the bolts from the rim and puts them in

the hub cap. But as he gets up to stretch, he accidently

flips the hub cap into the air with his foot. The bolts

land in the ditch water. So, he's standing there, wondering

what the hell to do. Then along comes a mental patient

and asks him what's wrong. The guy says: " I lost all the

bolts to my tire and now I'm stuck here." So the kook

thinks for a second and makes a suggestion: "Well,

why don't you remove one bolt from each of the other three

tires and use them to put your spare on?" The guy

says: "Wow, that's brilliant. How in hell did you ever think

of that?!" And the nut says: "Well, I may be crazy but I'm

not stupid."

Scully smiled.

"A smile? That's it?"

"Well, it was cute but not hilarious."

"That's because it's build up was ruined."

Now she laughed, a happy chuckle.

She loved him. Mulder was here, sitting beside her

in a park on a Friday, sane and free and hers and not a

fucking white-coat in sight.

Back from his quick trip to Boston where he'd,

somehow on God's green earth, stumbled into trouble.

Thankfully, it had turned out all right.

Ross, rot his stinking hide, was sitting on his

ass in a cell waiting for an his arraignment while

his public defender bit his greenhorn nails. Mulder

would have to return there for the actual trial

which could be who knew when.

Mulder had wanted to take the flight to Boston alone.

Tough on her, acting unselfish and hugging him as he left

in a cab for the airport. But it was his first time, out and

away, without a net. Without anyone to drop the bread-

crumbs and in his anxiety to depart he hadn't even kissed

her goodbye.

But he'd come home again and - God - she loved

him.

Scully saw Mulder in that context and no other.

Because she had learned something about it

over the span of a decade.

Love encompassed so much and excluded so little.

Mulder had aged. A sprinkling of grey hair

now. Crows feet and laugh lines. The man would

soon be starting on the road to jowl-dom.

Scully noticed, now, sitting next to him

in the bright sunlight, an age spot or two

on the backs of his scarred hands. She shud-

dered at the image of him trying to claw his

way through a wall, screaming in the dark.

He drew on a Winston, smoke curling out

his nostrils. He was up to a half pack a day

but with all he'd been through, she certainly

wasn't going to begrudge him a regular nicotine

fix.

/No one is ever going to harm you again,

Mulder. I will not let them./

He swallowed, throat tight with nervousness.

He'd wanted to talk he said.

She was letting him take his time. He always

wanted to say it just right.

So she let him smoke and think about it while

she studied his scars and clear eyes and teeny,

sweet, clutchable love-handles.

And what of them anyway?

Forty-seven years and too, too many bumps on

the long, hard road will do that to anyone.

But - God in his elusive heaven - the man

was beautiful. Inside and out.

Still.

To Scully.

And - merciful angels looking down - he was

hers!

Those few extra marks and fat cells accumulated

since his prime just made him more interesting,

more vulnerable and human. And - yes - sexier.

Her eyes came back to rest on his face just as they

always did when the two of them made these little

midday forays to the park. The September sun called

people out of their cubby holes and they'd pour out

en-mass when Twelve o'clock beeped on thousands of

little timepieces throughout the office buildings

of the Capital.

She loved his face, one that was ready to forgive

almost anything.

Gentle, lovable man.

Is that what she had seen that first time in the basement

all those years and years ago? She tried to remember.

First impressions.

Handsome?

Definitely.

Sexy?

Impossible to ignore.

Genius?

Rumored to be.

Impossible to work with? (That's what "they" - the gossip

mill - had told her).

Not if you were Irish.

Frivolous? A waste of the Bureau's time and resources?

No goddamn way.

Had he gotten on a few people's nerves during the years

the X-Files were active?

Frequently, including his boss's. Had Skinner a full head

of hair before Mulder showed up?

But through all of it, Mulder'd remained an honest, hard working

successful, case-closing agent. A pain in the ass, yes, and

Skinner'd gone over the line for him more than once, protecting

him from his own impulsiveness. So had she.

First impressions had also included Mulder's passion for truth

and his fierce devotion when it came to friendship, a quality

of his she had tasted very soon, in the first months of their

partnership.

Then she learned of his protectiveness. Yet he had never

compromised her dignity as an investigator or equal. Frequently

relying on her, in fact, first for her medical knowledge, then

for her insights - even if he knew they would probably go against

his own, still he had asked.

And then before she realized it, he'd begun to depend upon her,

confide in her, seek her out during troubled hours professionally

and in his personal life. Among the gabbers of Spooky lore and his

former partners sent packing, the latter was unheard of.

Until that day, when she strolled confidently into his cluttered

basement office and found a GQ four-eyed Freud, she had never

in her life met such a complicated individual.

He was handsome and smart and should have been on the highroad

to the FBI Hall of Fame. But instead he'd locked himself away in

a forgotten corner, pouring over cases bearing the names of

places and people no-one else cared about.

No one except Mulder, she soon found out.

Where other agents spent their time trying to climb the ladder,

he spent his trying to solve the previously unsolvable, forsaking

bureaucratic ass-kissing and that great striving for high station

most were trying to achieve before the day of reckoning.

When one grows up in a family of status with a high brow father,

sometimes fame can become a non-priority. No more looked-for than

meatloaf at six or mediocre football. Rarely, but sometimes.

Mulder, after his new partner had questioned him about it one day,

asking him what in the FBI he expected to be doing in ten years,

had first stared at her like she'd spoken Swahili; as if no one had

ever asked him anything personal about himself let alone about his

future. She wondered if he'd ever given it serious thought. Finally, with

a shrug of his shoulders, he'd answered - "Working."

She soon found out that for him it was the work and the fallible, frail

human beings inside the cases that was important, not the ladder of

success.

She'd heard that he'd run for his life from Violent Crimes, where

he certainly would have achieved all there was to attain in the

hallowed halls of the Bureau. But only at the cost of his sanity.

Scully had come to understand that people came first with him,

in particular the innocent, and not the monsters that stalked

them.

And she'd learned a few other things. Like how his sister

had disappeared and his family had fallen apart. How he had blamed

himself, his father punishing him and his mother shutting him out.

And how he'd coped with the terrible anguish of all of it for

decades yet still found room to joke with his new skeptical

partner.

All that was a long time ago and nothing would hurt him now. Not

today. Not ever again.

Not as long as she occupied the same earth he did. Not as long

as her shadow fell across his.

Even Mulder's old nemesis left him in peace. She hadn't

caught the whiff of Morley's for years.

Someday, though, she really wanted to know who the hell that

corrupt old prune had been, especially his connection to

Mulder. Scully really wanted to know that part.

"They" left him alone and in peace. It was a well earned rest.

So much history packed into the man with the heartbreaking

eyes and the hottest ass in Washington.

Imperfections?

Those just added to the whole and made it better. It

wasn't a thing one could explain to the inexperienced in

love. To those who admired the buffed, oiled-skinned

heavyweights posing for the world at the checkout stand.

Masculine ideal, their pasted grins said.

Hardly.

Perfection was a crashing bore.

Uniqueness and genuine originality, for those

qualities one had to work and work hard.

Body beautiful was an older, looser Mulder whose

lifetime collection of wounds and wear made her hunger

all the more to touch him. Such battle trophies should

be treasured and their carrier protected.

That would be her honor someday. And her reward.

Thus far, each had not shared of the others body.

It was still her one regret and, she hoped, his

as well.

But he was correct when he stated they should wait.

So hope.

Hope to be with him and soothe the memory of the

battle scars. Erase their occurrence in loving him

though their very existence made him more lovely.

Endowed him with the beauty of strength and passion

because he'd taken them on and won.

Mulder lived, despite everything.

The ideal sat beside her, in the new suit she'd bought

for him, picking at nervously bitten nails.

Every-so-often the edge of that Styrofoam cup of

coffee (he could drink caffeinated now without throwing it

up), would disappear between those lips and remind her

that he was the best kiss on the planet and he belonged

to her.

Her temporarily, unemployed, middle-aged man with

the over bite.

Suddenly, piled on top of the waves of sadness that

were passing through the center of her heart, joy was

there too and she chuckled.

"What?" he asked. They'd been sitting in silence for

several minutes.

"Nothing. Really,.." shaking her head and taking his

fidgity hand, "..nothing." Smiled a brave soldiers smile.

She watched his lips part. These days when he spoke, he

thought a lot about his words before he said them, not

liking the waste of breath or precious time. He hated

small talk with all the absolutism that most people

reserved for lima-bean salad.

"Scully. Are you sure you're okay with this?"

She nodded, squeezed his hand tighter. Hands fleshed

with color, warmth and life. Nothing death-like about

them at all.

He searched her eyes, making certain. He did not want

to hurt her and could not live if she were damaged

because of him. There was too much healing behind him

and all because of her. She was too wonderful a thing to

risk unless he was sure she would still be there.

Scully read all that in his eyes and in the space of

time during his next breath.

"Because, if you're not, we can find another way.

Maybe I could-"

"-Mulder." She quieted him. He paused, mouth open,

waiting for her to speak their course one way or another.

She leaned over and kissed him, letting him understand

that she was neither holding him there nor leaving him.

But letting him know she loved him and nothing else in

the world.

When she set his mouth free, "I have to do this." He

explained again for the hundreth time, appologetically,

a bit sadly, a trifle anxiously.

"I know."

"It's been so long since I've been able to make a decision

on my own. What to wear, where to go, whether or not to

get drunk if I feel like it. I just need this time. Some time.

A few months. Six months. I just need to prove to myself that

I can make it alone. Even if it's only for a while. But..."

Again, the anxious eyes. "...I don't want to lose you."

Again, for the thousandth time. "I don't want to hurt you."

It was killing her, seeing him go. He was still, in a way,

seeking for her permission. Can I go? he was asking and

if she requested it, he would stay and do his best to make

her happy. But she wondered if he would learn to hate

her for it, for the invisible cage that that would erect

around him.

God, she couldn't do that to him. Or to herself.

Snap on the chains? Never, never.

She told the truth. "You won't. You aren't." She lied. "I'll

be okay, honestly." The naked soul. "But I want phone calls,

okay? I'll need them. I will, Mulder." The broken heart.

"I love you so much..." Bit her lip, not wanting to go too

far, say too much or make a guilt trip out of saying goodbye.

But love. It was so easy to say now. And such a simple thing

that she wondered why in the world she had ever had trouble

speaking it.

"...so if you think this is a see-ya-around-have-a-great-life

goodbye, you are soooo wrong." she smiled at her own tease.

Humor was better. It put them both at ease.

Mulder looked down at her hand over his and at her. "I do too."

Glad to be able to say it and mean it and not hang for it. And

not be chained to it quite yet either.

He kissed her cheek and stood to go but she caught his arm.

"Wait." She gathered up her own briefcase. "Let me."

Let me walk away because if I see you doing it I'll

fall apart.

Scully picked up her jacket, layed a hand on his shoulder

and walked away without looking back.

To work. Calls to make, deadlines to meet, classes to teach,

reports to write.

It was the hand of God or the pull of Destiny or some

nameless guardian who layed a hand on her shoulder and

made her slow and turn back around.

Her name, she'd heard it.

No.

Mulder was just getting up.

He must have stayed sitting there watching her walk away.

Maybe testing himself. Maybe his ability to take it; to not

run after; to not have the need.

That he'd been watching after her filled her spirit and

cracked it at the same time.

Oh, God, what am I doing? Am I insane? Why am I letting

him go?

She was only two hundred feet distant and already she

missed his nearness to the degree of crazy. Her throat

ached from holding back the sobs.

Six months.

Was a lifetime.

"Mulder!" she called.

He had not seen her looking back and was walking

away - so much farther away - from her but on hearing

his name, looked around, waiting.

"Call me!"

He wouldn't be able to see her tears or know of her

glass-walled and breaking heart. She kept the tremor out

of her voice with a terrific effort. Practise.

"YOU BETTER!" Two last gestures shared with him, a

wave of her trembling hand, a smile to hide the pain.

Under her breath, "You just better because I love you,

you amazing son-of-a-bitch."

He smiled, a promising and grateful grin, a truthful one

accompanied by a nodding of his head. Mulder turned to

face the other direction and where it might take him,

walking away into the afternoon.

Eventually she lost the definition of him as he

merged into the crowds of lunchtime humanity.

NOVEMBER 21, 2006. 10:13 A.M. ( Two months post-

F.M.'s return).

It was not quiet, this place.

The Old Man thought it was. Quiet and dark and a

place where he was not known.

He, the Helper heard and saw every creature that

crawled through the branches and skittered along

the damp soil beneath his feet.

To him, it was a disorganized, noisey world.

He trudged through the wet leaves to the small veranda

of the cabin. A small house, really, with all the amenities.

The place was unevenly heated due to the fire in the

hearth that the Old Man seemed to like. As usual he gave

little thought to it or to his own comfort. Old Man was his

assignment and commander both and complaining had

no place in the Work.

The Old Man was old now. And no longer breathed

unless he had his tinny oxygen tank to pull around like

a child with his toy. Old Man was sick and stayed in

his cabin day and night in the forests of Agusta.

Even the Others did not visit. They were all getting old

and weak but younger ones would replace them and things

would progress as they should.

He entered, standing inside the door until Old Man invited

him to sit which he did stiffly, the upright hard chairs not to

his approval. The message he had to deliver this time was

a simple one. "He is back."

Old Man narrowed his wrinkled eyes and that was all. As

always, nearly expressionless. No emotion to tell him if Old

Man received the news as good or bad.

"We must inform the Others." Old Man said.

He nodded, his own stone-carved face betraying nothing of

his personal feelings. Or thoughts even. "He is in a place." Told

Old Man the name of it. "He is ill."

Old Man took a long breath and the air flowing through the

line from the tank to his nose bubbled. "Resiliance has always

been his strength. We will of course need Watchers."

"Why?.." It was rare he asked why or the reason for anything.

It was not encouraged among the Helpers. "..If he is broken?"

"I have explained why. The reasons have not altered."

"Yes, but-"

"-Do we know who took him?"

He shook his granit cranium in the negative.

"That gives cause for some alarm." Little puffs from his nose

ventilator replaced smoke that used to rise. "Never-the-less, if

indeed he's back..."

Old Man chuckled softly, not in the manner of some evil

incarnate of his Devil-god, but of an aged human who had seen

much bordom of late and despised it.

Breath in...

"Well,.." The sick human finished, "nothing changes, really

does it?"

Breath out...

"It just gets simpler."

Turning to go, thought I heard you call out my name

Like a bird in a cage, spreading its wings to fly.

"The old ways are lost" you sang as you flew.

And I wondered why...

"The Old Ways" by Loreena McKinnet

END


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